[books 2012] crime cornucopia
Jul. 14th, 2012 09:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
inulro39. The Lewis Man by Peter May
The gimmick here is it's set in the Outer Hebrides, something I can resist even less than Castillo's Amish series or Cleeves' Shetland series.
A perfectly preserved body is found in a peat bog on Lewis. The authorities are hoping it will turn out to be Bronze Age or earlier, but when the pathologist washes it off and finds an Elvis tattoo, that's the end of that theory.
Except for one thing, not much more than average. I stayed up way too late to finish it, and was truly disappointed. The bones of a great story were there, but it just didn't work that well for me.
The exception is that I found it incredibly evocative of the landscape. I've only been to Lewis and Harris, so I can't vouch for his description of the southern islands, but it really made me feel like I was right there. So I guess it's a success in that I'm trying to find the time to take another trip up there, and this time to make it to the other islands.
40. Death of an Expert Witness by PD James
Although I haven't read this before, I've seen the television adaptation, so no great surprises. After having read the more recent Dalgliesh outings, reading an earlier one (published and set in the late 70s) was interesting.
The thing that struck me most was that the 18 year old girl let her mother "make" her eat breakfast when she slept in, thus making her late for work, and indeed that her parents had a say in where she worked, and that this was seen as normal and acceptable. Totally alien to my world.
41. Breaking Silence by Linda Castillo
Third in the series about the ex-Amish chief of police set in a part of Ohio with a significant Amish population. Not nearly as good as the first two. While it's nice that the two main characters finally put a definition on their relationship and stop playing games with each other, that part took up too damn much of the book. (Castillo has another life as a romance author, and it kind of showed here).
Also (I hadn't appreciated this in the second novel), this third volume about brutal mass murder takes place within a year of the first instalment; giving Painters' Mill a higher per capita murder rater than Midsomer. I mean, I kow my personal bias is that I'll stay in the city where it's safe, thanks, this is a bit ridiculous.
The gimmick here is it's set in the Outer Hebrides, something I can resist even less than Castillo's Amish series or Cleeves' Shetland series.
A perfectly preserved body is found in a peat bog on Lewis. The authorities are hoping it will turn out to be Bronze Age or earlier, but when the pathologist washes it off and finds an Elvis tattoo, that's the end of that theory.
Except for one thing, not much more than average. I stayed up way too late to finish it, and was truly disappointed. The bones of a great story were there, but it just didn't work that well for me.
The exception is that I found it incredibly evocative of the landscape. I've only been to Lewis and Harris, so I can't vouch for his description of the southern islands, but it really made me feel like I was right there. So I guess it's a success in that I'm trying to find the time to take another trip up there, and this time to make it to the other islands.
40. Death of an Expert Witness by PD James
Although I haven't read this before, I've seen the television adaptation, so no great surprises. After having read the more recent Dalgliesh outings, reading an earlier one (published and set in the late 70s) was interesting.
The thing that struck me most was that the 18 year old girl let her mother "make" her eat breakfast when she slept in, thus making her late for work, and indeed that her parents had a say in where she worked, and that this was seen as normal and acceptable. Totally alien to my world.
41. Breaking Silence by Linda Castillo
Third in the series about the ex-Amish chief of police set in a part of Ohio with a significant Amish population. Not nearly as good as the first two. While it's nice that the two main characters finally put a definition on their relationship and stop playing games with each other, that part took up too damn much of the book. (Castillo has another life as a romance author, and it kind of showed here).
Also (I hadn't appreciated this in the second novel), this third volume about brutal mass murder takes place within a year of the first instalment; giving Painters' Mill a higher per capita murder rater than Midsomer. I mean, I kow my personal bias is that I'll stay in the city where it's safe, thanks, this is a bit ridiculous.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-14 09:13 pm (UTC)something I can resist even less than
Have you read The Stornoway Way?
no subject
Date: 2012-07-15 01:44 pm (UTC)