Books 106-107: Love in Idleness by Amanda Craig and Backlash by Lynda la Plante
Book 106: Love in Idleness.
Author: Amanda Craig, 2003.
Genre: Contemporary. Comedy/drama. Shakespeare-inspired.
Other Details: Paperback. 352 pages.
I read this novel in 2011, enthusiastically reviewing it here (2011 Book 49), so I won't repeat the synopsis aside from saying that it is a contemporary re-working of A Midsummer Nights Dream and more details can be found in that earlier review.
This was a second reading for me and I found I enjoyed it even more than the first time as I was able to further appreciate the relationship with its Shakespearean inspiration as well as the splendid characterisation and sophisticated humour.
I had suggested it for one of my reading groups and was a little surprised at the meeting that opinion was very divided. Looking at reader reviews on Goodreads suggests that it is a Marmite book that polarizes readers into love/hate camps. Still often a book like this can lead to stimulating discussions and this proved the case here. We ended up talking about our feelings about privileged characters and various adaptations of Shakespeare that included some sharing their experience of some quite experimental performances.
Book 107: Backlash (Anna Travis #8).
Author: Lynda la Plante, 2012.
Genre: Crime. Police Procedural.
Other Details: Hardback. 484 pages.
When the police pull over a white van that is being driven erratically, they discover the body of a young woman inside. The driver is questioned and confesses. He also claims to be responsible for the deaths of two others and mentions the name of a 13-year old girl, who had disappeared without trace five years earlier. A case that has continued to haunt had haunt its lead investigator DCS James Langton. As Langton is on medical leave following a knee operation he asks DCI Anna Travis to join the investigation and report back to him. Then the suspect changes his story, claiming that he was only trying to wind up the police.
This was another strong showing from this series that took the unusual step of having the killer arrested right away and the focus of the plot centre on the police building a solid case against the suspect for the other murders after his retraction. Lynda la Plante deals with the day-to-day aspects of a criminal investigation, so things don't always go smoothly as they often do on US crime shows.
I am quite addicted to this series and having read it from the start it has been gratifying to see Anna develop as a character, from an insecure novice detective to a composed and confident investigator. She is intelligent, strong and proving to be something of a lone wolf, much like her mentor James Langton.