10 more mysteries and... done!
Previously on 50bookchallenge I went on a mystery kick sometime in September, and haven't unkicked. I'm counting from that first mystery, not from the first of any year. Here are the final ten:
41. The Unexpected Mrs Pollifax by Dorothy Gilman. Mrs Pollifax is a widow who's starting to get bored with her garden club lifestyle. So she volunteers to join the CIA. Her first mission, needless to say, goes somewhat awry. Spy thriller/humor. [Amazon.] I read this because I'd just read another Gilman and enjoyed the "wacky hijinks ensue" style of it. I liked this one for exactly the same reason. It is exactly as it says on the tin: wacky sixtysomething CIA recruit is wacky and sixtysomething.
42. Christmas Stalkings ed. Charlotte MacLeod. A collection of Christmas-themed short mysteries. [ Amazon.] Surprisingly good for an anthology. I'm not usually a fan of super short mysteries because they have a tendency to be gimmicky, but I really enjoyed all of these. Basically exists to be a stocking stuffer for mystery fans, but that's okay because it's fully worthy.
43. Corridors of Death by Ruth Dudley Edwards. Civil servant Robert Amiss's ordered world is turned upside down when his deeply unpleasant boss is murdered. He teams up with the police to find out which of the many suspects actually had the nerve to do the old man in. [Amzon.] My mom got me almost this entire series for Christmas. I was skeptical at first -- British satirical detective novels, okay, not exactly my thing -- but they turned out to be absolutely wonderful. This is the first book in the series and will probably remain one of my favorites for the sheer awesomeness of the victim and the beginnings of the relationship between Amiss and his police counterpart, Jim Milton.
44. The School of English Murder by Ruth Dudley Edwards. Amiss goes undercover at a school for English as a Second Language to see if a mysterious death a few months ago was murder. Result: more mysterious deaths, and very little teaching. [Amazon]. I liked this (the third book in the series) just as much as the first one. There's an awesome and complex m/m relationship, the usual quirky band of suspects, a neat puzzle, and the addition of Ellis Pooley to the Amiss-Milton working relationship (though he's actually introduced in the prev. book, which I don't own). Anyhow, excellent.
45. Clubbed to Death by Ruth Dudley Edwards. Pooley lures Amiss into another dead-end job at an absurdly (and intentionally) stereotyped gentleman's club. Once again, Amiss investigates a mysterious death. [Amazon]. This is where, for me, the series, always satirical, started degenerating into unfunniness. I did like this book a lot, and there were nice complex relationships and subplots, but it wasn't my favorite.
46. Matricide at St. Martha's by Ruth Dudley Edwards. Amiss's friend Jack Troutbeck, bursar at St. Martha's (a Cambridge women's college) asks him to help her out in navigating some tricky college politics: the Virgins (old-school, academically rigorous, erudite and irrelevant) vs the Dykes (politically correct, feminist, anti-everything, including good scholarship). Also, it turns out, there's murder. [Amazon]. So, since I am a Dyke (in both senses: I'm a lesbian, and I'm a left-leaning one-time academic who wants to affix "lesbian" to every discipline and dig up and root out the patriarchy) I was mildly to very offended through most of it. I also feel, though I can't prove, that the satire starts to get mean here. Also, even though on paper she's awesome (a sexually ambiguous, academically conservative, raunchy dirtyoldwoman), I don't really like Jack Troutbeck that much.
47. Ten Lords A-Leaping by Ruth Dudley Edwards. Jack Troutbeck becomes a Baroness and joins(?) the House of Lords, where she fights (with Amiss's help) an anti-fox-hunting bill, and also tries not to get killed by anti-hunting extremists. [Amazon.] So, I love the fast pace and the dialogue and the relationships between characters, but the House of Lords and foxhunting I don't really care to read about, so I teetered on boredom. I wouldn't recommend this as an intro the series -- the earlier books really are much better! -- but if you do like the series, this isn't all bad.
48. The Street Lawyer by John Grisham. When high-powered DC lawyer Michael Brock is held hostage one afternoon by a homeless man, his whole life changes as he uncovers the trail that led the homeless man to his office that afternoon and ponders giving up his fast-track position in a big firm to pursue homeless law. [Amazon.] My first Grisham (I know I know). Fast-paced, sharp dialogue, tight writing? Absolutely. For an inspirational plight-of-the-homeless book, it was incredibly readable.
49. The Brethren by John Grisham. The Brethren are three disrobed judges in a minimum security federal prison who settle internal squabbles and run a big time scam on the side. Aaron Lake is the man the CIA want to elect to the US Presidency. Hijinks ensue [Amazon.] And for a Grisham that's something completely different... basically all the characters are morally repugnant, but it's a lot of fun, same pros as the above: sharply written and fast-paced.
50. Blood Test by Jonathan Kellerman. Alex Delaware is a child psychologist who took early retirement but still testifies as an expert witness occasionally, and as this book opens, he agrees to talk with a family whose son has been diagnosed with cancer, in the hopes that he can convince them to agree to appropriate treatment. Then, the boy is kidnapped. Is it the obscure cult called The Touch? The libidinous Fellow? The type-A doctor? The boy's weird parents and/or sister? Etc. [Amazon.] There isn't even a bodycount until halfway through the book, but the second half more than makes up for that in sheer cracktastic, action-packed awesomeness. If you like cracky, reality-bending thrillers? Totally awesome. Slow start, awesome finish, not excellent enough to want to read the rest of the series. Unless I were in that kind of a mood.
And that's it! Fifty mysteries.
My new plan is to read 50 more mysteries set in the 50 states of the US. I've checked out the first 6 already.
41. The Unexpected Mrs Pollifax by Dorothy Gilman. Mrs Pollifax is a widow who's starting to get bored with her garden club lifestyle. So she volunteers to join the CIA. Her first mission, needless to say, goes somewhat awry. Spy thriller/humor. [Amazon.] I read this because I'd just read another Gilman and enjoyed the "wacky hijinks ensue" style of it. I liked this one for exactly the same reason. It is exactly as it says on the tin: wacky sixtysomething CIA recruit is wacky and sixtysomething.
42. Christmas Stalkings ed. Charlotte MacLeod. A collection of Christmas-themed short mysteries. [ Amazon.] Surprisingly good for an anthology. I'm not usually a fan of super short mysteries because they have a tendency to be gimmicky, but I really enjoyed all of these. Basically exists to be a stocking stuffer for mystery fans, but that's okay because it's fully worthy.
43. Corridors of Death by Ruth Dudley Edwards. Civil servant Robert Amiss's ordered world is turned upside down when his deeply unpleasant boss is murdered. He teams up with the police to find out which of the many suspects actually had the nerve to do the old man in. [Amzon.] My mom got me almost this entire series for Christmas. I was skeptical at first -- British satirical detective novels, okay, not exactly my thing -- but they turned out to be absolutely wonderful. This is the first book in the series and will probably remain one of my favorites for the sheer awesomeness of the victim and the beginnings of the relationship between Amiss and his police counterpart, Jim Milton.
44. The School of English Murder by Ruth Dudley Edwards. Amiss goes undercover at a school for English as a Second Language to see if a mysterious death a few months ago was murder. Result: more mysterious deaths, and very little teaching. [Amazon]. I liked this (the third book in the series) just as much as the first one. There's an awesome and complex m/m relationship, the usual quirky band of suspects, a neat puzzle, and the addition of Ellis Pooley to the Amiss-Milton working relationship (though he's actually introduced in the prev. book, which I don't own). Anyhow, excellent.
45. Clubbed to Death by Ruth Dudley Edwards. Pooley lures Amiss into another dead-end job at an absurdly (and intentionally) stereotyped gentleman's club. Once again, Amiss investigates a mysterious death. [Amazon]. This is where, for me, the series, always satirical, started degenerating into unfunniness. I did like this book a lot, and there were nice complex relationships and subplots, but it wasn't my favorite.
46. Matricide at St. Martha's by Ruth Dudley Edwards. Amiss's friend Jack Troutbeck, bursar at St. Martha's (a Cambridge women's college) asks him to help her out in navigating some tricky college politics: the Virgins (old-school, academically rigorous, erudite and irrelevant) vs the Dykes (politically correct, feminist, anti-everything, including good scholarship). Also, it turns out, there's murder. [Amazon]. So, since I am a Dyke (in both senses: I'm a lesbian, and I'm a left-leaning one-time academic who wants to affix "lesbian" to every discipline and dig up and root out the patriarchy) I was mildly to very offended through most of it. I also feel, though I can't prove, that the satire starts to get mean here. Also, even though on paper she's awesome (a sexually ambiguous, academically conservative, raunchy dirtyoldwoman), I don't really like Jack Troutbeck that much.
47. Ten Lords A-Leaping by Ruth Dudley Edwards. Jack Troutbeck becomes a Baroness and joins(?) the House of Lords, where she fights (with Amiss's help) an anti-fox-hunting bill, and also tries not to get killed by anti-hunting extremists. [Amazon.] So, I love the fast pace and the dialogue and the relationships between characters, but the House of Lords and foxhunting I don't really care to read about, so I teetered on boredom. I wouldn't recommend this as an intro the series -- the earlier books really are much better! -- but if you do like the series, this isn't all bad.
48. The Street Lawyer by John Grisham. When high-powered DC lawyer Michael Brock is held hostage one afternoon by a homeless man, his whole life changes as he uncovers the trail that led the homeless man to his office that afternoon and ponders giving up his fast-track position in a big firm to pursue homeless law. [Amazon.] My first Grisham (I know I know). Fast-paced, sharp dialogue, tight writing? Absolutely. For an inspirational plight-of-the-homeless book, it was incredibly readable.
49. The Brethren by John Grisham. The Brethren are three disrobed judges in a minimum security federal prison who settle internal squabbles and run a big time scam on the side. Aaron Lake is the man the CIA want to elect to the US Presidency. Hijinks ensue [Amazon.] And for a Grisham that's something completely different... basically all the characters are morally repugnant, but it's a lot of fun, same pros as the above: sharply written and fast-paced.
50. Blood Test by Jonathan Kellerman. Alex Delaware is a child psychologist who took early retirement but still testifies as an expert witness occasionally, and as this book opens, he agrees to talk with a family whose son has been diagnosed with cancer, in the hopes that he can convince them to agree to appropriate treatment. Then, the boy is kidnapped. Is it the obscure cult called The Touch? The libidinous Fellow? The type-A doctor? The boy's weird parents and/or sister? Etc. [Amazon.] There isn't even a bodycount until halfway through the book, but the second half more than makes up for that in sheer cracktastic, action-packed awesomeness. If you like cracky, reality-bending thrillers? Totally awesome. Slow start, awesome finish, not excellent enough to want to read the rest of the series. Unless I were in that kind of a mood.
And that's it! Fifty mysteries.
My new plan is to read 50 more mysteries set in the 50 states of the US. I've checked out the first 6 already.