My Beautiful Murder Monday
What I've Given Up on For Now
A Forest of Eyes. Nothing was sticking together in my mind. Sorry, Victor Canning. I'll try again some other time.
What I've Finished Reading
It should probably come as no surprise that in Last Ditch, [this is a spoiler]Ricky Alleyn gets kidnapped, AGAIN. That's what you get for trying to be in a book, Ricky! Look how worried your dad is; you can almost see it in his face if you know what to look for. :( There's also an incredibly melodramatic Marsh reveal, and toward the end a very minor character announces that she is a member of the Lamprey family, for absolutely no reason except The Readers Love Lampreys. For fans of unexpected cultural reference points, there's an offhand reference to The Black and White Minstrel Show, a British blackface variety show that ran until 1978. By far the best thing about this book was Alleyn wrestling with the inevitable anxieties of detective paternity in his low-key way; otherwise, it's a pretty standard mid-level Marsh. The supporting characters are all reasonably alive as long as they have narrative functions to perform, and evaporate instantly on closing the book.
The Monkey's Mask by Dorothy Porter:
[Hippie Poets]
After the break
it's a hippie circus
three pretty boys, one mug girl
tossing their curls
shouting their poems
between costume changes
whales and rainforests
line after blubbering line
get me a harpoon
get me a bulldozer
better still
fetch my wicked woman
darling, don't make me sit
through this shit
on my own.
This is billed as "an erotic murder mystery," which in practical terms means that the narrator spends a frustrating percentage of book time having sex with a woman who is very, very, very obviously bad news, to the detriment of her investigation, a missing person case that turns into murder. This creates an interesting tension of satisfactions, because the sex scenes (poems) are pretty good as these things go, and the case is compelling, but they tear at one another -- which I guess is the point. The intensely intimate first-person narration (the verse structure gives you the impression of thoughts pounded out in pacing, or dragged forward by the rhythms of the car radio and the road) makes the narrator's attachment to Diana a hundred times more anxiety-inducing, and also more irritating, than it would be in third person, or even in first-person paragraphs.
Even though I've never been to Australia, I'm tempted to say this book is very Australian - it has the kind of sharp gritty sense of place that creates an illusion of familiarity - an imaginary Australian nodding in ersatz recognition at the back of my mind. Some of the poetry-scene stuff feels a little more artificial, and the book suffers a little from the classic verse-novel problem that some of the poems are inevitably duller than others. Mostly the verse is a perfect fit for the kind of book it is: hard-boiled, hard-bitten, fleshy and sad.
What I'm Reading Now
Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie. The title character is a very charming dog who has been unjustly blamed for an accident that was probably a murder attempt by a human. Poirot will sort it out eventually. This one is narrated by Hastings, and I'd forgotten just how much of an incorrigible Jam Watson Hastings is. When the woman who sent Poirot a mysterious letter turns out to be dead, he's all, "No sense in hanging around here, then, is there? Mystery solved!" Oh, Hastings. Just spread him on a scone and call him breakfast.
The next book in my Mystery Bundle is something special I am very pleased to be able to share with you all.
"Hardman slugs the wrong man, swings with the wrong woman, and winds up on the wrong end of a hit artist's gun."
This book is promising enough so far. Private investigator JIM HARDMAN and his buddy HUMP DAVIS like to hang out in dive bars in Atlanta, but sometimes, as in the opening chapter, randos try to stab them. Thus the opening mystery, if not the one that will occupy us for the rest of the book, becomes, "Who wants to stab HARDMAN, and why?" Maybe some people just don't like names that are also character traits. Investigating this incident will presumably lead us down a tangled path to more mystery, if the promises of the front and back covers are to be believed (actually, the back cover outline makes it sound a lot like The Big Sleep). But is there a right end of a hit artist's gun?
HARDMAN #6: Murder's Not an Odd Job could go a lot of ways at this point, most of them a little on the unpleasant side, but I'm cautiously optimistic. Anyone who would name his characters JIM HARDMAN and HUMP DAVIS has to have a sense of humor. . . right?
What I Plan to Read Next
Grave Mistake by Ngaio Marsh. Ngaio Marsh, I'm going to miss your stupid title puns such a lot. I mean, I know they'll all still be here, but can anything recapture the magic of learning their ridiculously on-the-nose significance for the first time? I doubt it.
A Forest of Eyes. Nothing was sticking together in my mind. Sorry, Victor Canning. I'll try again some other time.
What I've Finished Reading
It should probably come as no surprise that in Last Ditch, [this is a spoiler]Ricky Alleyn gets kidnapped, AGAIN. That's what you get for trying to be in a book, Ricky! Look how worried your dad is; you can almost see it in his face if you know what to look for. :( There's also an incredibly melodramatic Marsh reveal, and toward the end a very minor character announces that she is a member of the Lamprey family, for absolutely no reason except The Readers Love Lampreys. For fans of unexpected cultural reference points, there's an offhand reference to The Black and White Minstrel Show, a British blackface variety show that ran until 1978. By far the best thing about this book was Alleyn wrestling with the inevitable anxieties of detective paternity in his low-key way; otherwise, it's a pretty standard mid-level Marsh. The supporting characters are all reasonably alive as long as they have narrative functions to perform, and evaporate instantly on closing the book.
The Monkey's Mask by Dorothy Porter:
[Hippie Poets]
After the break
it's a hippie circus
three pretty boys, one mug girl
tossing their curls
shouting their poems
between costume changes
whales and rainforests
line after blubbering line
get me a harpoon
get me a bulldozer
better still
fetch my wicked woman
darling, don't make me sit
through this shit
on my own.
This is billed as "an erotic murder mystery," which in practical terms means that the narrator spends a frustrating percentage of book time having sex with a woman who is very, very, very obviously bad news, to the detriment of her investigation, a missing person case that turns into murder. This creates an interesting tension of satisfactions, because the sex scenes (poems) are pretty good as these things go, and the case is compelling, but they tear at one another -- which I guess is the point. The intensely intimate first-person narration (the verse structure gives you the impression of thoughts pounded out in pacing, or dragged forward by the rhythms of the car radio and the road) makes the narrator's attachment to Diana a hundred times more anxiety-inducing, and also more irritating, than it would be in third person, or even in first-person paragraphs.
Even though I've never been to Australia, I'm tempted to say this book is very Australian - it has the kind of sharp gritty sense of place that creates an illusion of familiarity - an imaginary Australian nodding in ersatz recognition at the back of my mind. Some of the poetry-scene stuff feels a little more artificial, and the book suffers a little from the classic verse-novel problem that some of the poems are inevitably duller than others. Mostly the verse is a perfect fit for the kind of book it is: hard-boiled, hard-bitten, fleshy and sad.
What I'm Reading Now
Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie. The title character is a very charming dog who has been unjustly blamed for an accident that was probably a murder attempt by a human. Poirot will sort it out eventually. This one is narrated by Hastings, and I'd forgotten just how much of an incorrigible Jam Watson Hastings is. When the woman who sent Poirot a mysterious letter turns out to be dead, he's all, "No sense in hanging around here, then, is there? Mystery solved!" Oh, Hastings. Just spread him on a scone and call him breakfast.
The next book in my Mystery Bundle is something special I am very pleased to be able to share with you all.
"Hardman slugs the wrong man, swings with the wrong woman, and winds up on the wrong end of a hit artist's gun."
This book is promising enough so far. Private investigator JIM HARDMAN and his buddy HUMP DAVIS like to hang out in dive bars in Atlanta, but sometimes, as in the opening chapter, randos try to stab them. Thus the opening mystery, if not the one that will occupy us for the rest of the book, becomes, "Who wants to stab HARDMAN, and why?" Maybe some people just don't like names that are also character traits. Investigating this incident will presumably lead us down a tangled path to more mystery, if the promises of the front and back covers are to be believed (actually, the back cover outline makes it sound a lot like The Big Sleep). But is there a right end of a hit artist's gun?
HARDMAN #6: Murder's Not an Odd Job could go a lot of ways at this point, most of them a little on the unpleasant side, but I'm cautiously optimistic. Anyone who would name his characters JIM HARDMAN and HUMP DAVIS has to have a sense of humor. . . right?
What I Plan to Read Next
Grave Mistake by Ngaio Marsh. Ngaio Marsh, I'm going to miss your stupid title puns such a lot. I mean, I know they'll all still be here, but can anything recapture the magic of learning their ridiculously on-the-nose significance for the first time? I doubt it.