Mutton, India Knight
I had been looking to read this one for ages, but when I did, I was underwhelmed. Thoughts on the chick lit blog here.
And then this month devolved into a crime extravaganza. The book club had chosen crime as the genre of the month, and the book chosen, Eight Perfect Murders is based on eight murder mystery classics. So some of us decided to read all eight in addition to the the book of the month itself.
For someone who was ambivalent about having one book a month chosen for me by the club, I don’t know what possessed me to sign up for reading eight prepicked novels. And I’ll admit I whined my way through most of them. If anything, this exercise clarified for me what kind of crime novels I like – cozy murders – and which I don’t – purely cerebral crime with little to no character development.
The ABC Murders, Agatha Christie
Delicious as ever. A serial killer is hunting down people alphabetically, based on their names and the town where they live. I really need to revisit the Poirot series. I guess after reading so much Christie, I am sufficiently familiar to guess at least one major plot twist.
Strangers on a Train, Patricia Highsmith
I really disliked this one and got into a mini-spat on the book club WhatsApp group (yes, bookish spats are a thing) because I mentioned how I was not up for this amount of dread. One of the women bossily said something on the lines of: these are crime novels, there will be gore, there will be dread, they can’t all be cozy. Which I get. But I don’t think crime novels necessarily have an overpowering sense of dread, though maybe there’s a subsection of them that do, and I am clearly not into that subsection. Or the subsection where characters are poorly drawn (though maybe that’s not true in this case, just the two protagonists were unlikeable to me, even as I say it’s not the job of the novelists to provide likeable characters). I think I dislike novels told through the killer’s perspective because then you know whodunnit write there, and I’m not very interested in the howdunnit. Also, here I felt the conclusion felt foredrawn and nothing new happened.
Deathtrap, Ira Levin
This is a play, and the plot is brilliant and it would be great to watch. Unfortunately, I felt it was so clever as to be lacking in character development (which may be a big ask for a play).
The Red House Mystery, A. A Milne
The epitome of a cozy house murder mystery, written by the author of Winnie the Pooh. The relationship between the detective and his “watson” was a bit patronising in that British way, but apart from that I enjoyed it. The solution to the mystery was not obvious. Shoutout to the maid Elsie who got told off for “borrowing” a novel from a guest.
Malice Afterthought, Francis Isles
What a fab opening line: “It was not until several weeks after he had decided to murder his wife that Doctor Bickleigh took any active steps in the matter.” The wife, Julia, is set up as a horror from the start, and I liked that there is a quite a lot of psychological complexity here. But I felt it went on too long. I figured out through this process that I really don’t like books from the murderer’s point of view. No suspense and they’re not very interesting after a point.
Double Indemnity, James M. Cain
An insurance agent decides to help a woman murder her husband. While I liked the writing, the motivation of the insurance agent is unclear. Why does he want to help her? Why does she want to do it? The twist though! Fack!
The Drowning, John D. Macdonald’s
One of those lone ranger detective things. But actually a meditation on gender relations and ideas of masculinity, femininity and sexuality in the 60s. Really enjoyed it.
Eight Perfect Murders, Peter Swanson
So, yeah, this was the book club pick. The premise is that a bookshop owner is contacted by the FBI after it is suspected that a series of murders are being conducted by a killer following a list of perfect murders in fiction that the bookseller put out years ago. So there are spoilers for eight books – the eighth being The Secret History, a Donna Tartt novel that everyone tends to be ooh aah about, but I generally found faintly annoying and blah. I thought the plotting of this book was great, until towards the end when I think he ran out of steam and basically just told you what happened.
After reading eight murder mysteries, here’s what I learned:
- I can appreciate a clever premise but there has to be character development and psychological complexity
- I don’t like novels from the criminal’s point of view. I have little interest in such twisted minds.
- I like cozy murders best, especially if they let the characters develop.