Murder in the Balance Monday
What I've Finished
Miss Pym Disposes shed its harem-anime lightness eventually -- well, the harem goes first and then the lightness, though neither one completely -- and becomes something else: a slow-building meditation on justice and responsibility? Shrewd and quiet dismantling of the entire premise of the mystery genre? Fascinating period piece about the presumably lost world of Physical Training Colleges? All these things, but especially the latter. Structurally, it's odd but effective -- not much happens, until everything does - and the ending is deliberately unsatisfying.
Miss Pym stays on at Leys for the company and finds herself in a position to suppress evidence of wrongdoing twice: once for cheating on an exam, once for murder. There is no investigator and no mystery in the traditional sense, just Miss Pym who is in the wrong place with all her fallible judgement at the wrong time, and all these earnest young women she thinks she's come to know but doesn't know at all. The moral dilemmas, and the final twist, might be more compelling if they didn't lean so much on Face Detection, but that's classic Tey. So is the protagonist getting everything wrong. Our old friend Richard III makes a cameo appearance -- and so does another Tey bugbear that it might be too much of a spoiler to mention.
What I'm Reading
Singing in the Shrouds by Ngaio Marsh. Another serial killer story! Featuring a flower-fixated serial killer who might be hiding on board a ship? Possibly [this is only a spoiler if I get it right]in disguise as a woman? but if that's going to be the case, then there shouldn't be this many comments on her mannishness, so maybe not!. Alleyn has been sent on board to investigate, in disguise as Not A Detective (it's not a very convincing disguise, despite how annoyed the captain is by his undetectively poshness), which means instigating a lot of sprightly conversations about popular psychology. Alleyn has just been writing a very Alleynesque letter to Troy, in which carefully measured portions of soppiness act as awkward buffers between long passages of forensic observation. Never change, Alleyn. <3
So far, I love The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler -- actually a Murder Monday/ 99 Novels overlap! It fell into my hands as part of a book donation, so I thought, "Why not?" Chandler's dialogue is terrific, brittle and artificial in the best way; he walks that tricky line between "characters have seen too many movies" and "author has seen too many movies." A private detective in Los Angeles does a reckless favor for an acquaintance, and lands himself in the middle of more mystery than is healthy. A few chapters in, I thought I knew more or less where this story was going, but now I have no idea, and it's the best thing.
What I Plan to Read Next
After I finish Brat Farrar, I will be all out of Josephine Tey mysteries. I'll be sorry when that happens, even though Tey and I don't always entirely get along. Of course, I can always re-read the best ones if I want to. I haven't decided if I'm going to try her non-mysteries.
Miss Pym Disposes shed its harem-anime lightness eventually -- well, the harem goes first and then the lightness, though neither one completely -- and becomes something else: a slow-building meditation on justice and responsibility? Shrewd and quiet dismantling of the entire premise of the mystery genre? Fascinating period piece about the presumably lost world of Physical Training Colleges? All these things, but especially the latter. Structurally, it's odd but effective -- not much happens, until everything does - and the ending is deliberately unsatisfying.
Miss Pym stays on at Leys for the company and finds herself in a position to suppress evidence of wrongdoing twice: once for cheating on an exam, once for murder. There is no investigator and no mystery in the traditional sense, just Miss Pym who is in the wrong place with all her fallible judgement at the wrong time, and all these earnest young women she thinks she's come to know but doesn't know at all. The moral dilemmas, and the final twist, might be more compelling if they didn't lean so much on Face Detection, but that's classic Tey. So is the protagonist getting everything wrong. Our old friend Richard III makes a cameo appearance -- and so does another Tey bugbear that it might be too much of a spoiler to mention.
What I'm Reading
Singing in the Shrouds by Ngaio Marsh. Another serial killer story! Featuring a flower-fixated serial killer who might be hiding on board a ship? Possibly [this is only a spoiler if I get it right]in disguise as a woman? but if that's going to be the case, then there shouldn't be this many comments on her mannishness, so maybe not!. Alleyn has been sent on board to investigate, in disguise as Not A Detective (it's not a very convincing disguise, despite how annoyed the captain is by his undetectively poshness), which means instigating a lot of sprightly conversations about popular psychology. Alleyn has just been writing a very Alleynesque letter to Troy, in which carefully measured portions of soppiness act as awkward buffers between long passages of forensic observation. Never change, Alleyn. <3
So far, I love The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler -- actually a Murder Monday/ 99 Novels overlap! It fell into my hands as part of a book donation, so I thought, "Why not?" Chandler's dialogue is terrific, brittle and artificial in the best way; he walks that tricky line between "characters have seen too many movies" and "author has seen too many movies." A private detective in Los Angeles does a reckless favor for an acquaintance, and lands himself in the middle of more mystery than is healthy. A few chapters in, I thought I knew more or less where this story was going, but now I have no idea, and it's the best thing.
What I Plan to Read Next
After I finish Brat Farrar, I will be all out of Josephine Tey mysteries. I'll be sorry when that happens, even though Tey and I don't always entirely get along. Of course, I can always re-read the best ones if I want to. I haven't decided if I'm going to try her non-mysteries.