Long Awaited Reads Month

So, I did this, or my own version of it. I have so much to choose from, with books that I own that I want to read. I have a shelf full of them. I need to weed it. I'm in a weeding mood. I've historically been extremely reluctant to weed my own shelves, though, so we'll see how that goes.

But the thing is, on those shelves are a number of things that I keep putting off because for whatever reason, something else always seems more pressing. January, as Long Awaited Reads Month (thanks to Ana and Iris) was the perfect time to forget more pressing and just go with what I knew I could love.

Here's how I did:

Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett
A Sand County Almanac and Essays from Round River by Aldo Leopold
Disco for the Departed by Colin Cotterill
Terrier by Tamora Peirce

That doesn't count me starting Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White, which I abandoned around page 70 for the third time in my life because ffs, Walter Hartright. And I also read Susan Dennard's Truthwitch, which can't be a LAR because it was released this month, except that it kind of felt like the book I've been waiting for so I'm going to count it for a half point.

That's 4.5 books. In one month. That's amazing for me these days. It turns out reading books that fit like a comfortable pair of jeans helps me read more. And when I read more, I feel better about myself. So even though I have been as sick as possible without hospitalization this month - still coughing up goo and feeling exhausted five weeks in - I can't count this month as a total wash; I read some wonderful, wonderful books.

I'll do little mini reviews because that's as much as I'm up to at this moment, but I may have more to say about each of these books as time goes on.

Men at Arms: It's been a long time since I read a Discworld book. Too long, really. Plus it's a Night Watch novel, and I love the Night Watch. I read it in two days and it was the perfect way to start my reading year. Amazing how relevant Pratchett seems to be, no matter when he wrote the book.

A Sand County Almanac: Putting my thoughts together on this one is going to be hard. Good thing I took notes. It was brilliant, the best thing I've read this month, and that's saying something. It was also the longest awaited of the long awaited books. I think I first heard of it when I was doing my undergrad and that is longer ago than I care to admit. It's surprisingly easy to read, given how dense it gets sometimes; the Almanac section is beautiful but regrettably short, the essays from Round River are deep and thought-provoking. Another book that is startlingly, and sadly, as relevant now as it was when it was written... which was the 1940s.

Disco for the Departed: I can't believe how long it took me to get to this. I've had it home from the library at least four or five times, and never made it past the first couple of pages before it was due, entirely because of reading other things. Wonderful to be back in 1970s Laos with Dr. Siri. I'll go anywhere with Dr. Siri. One of my favourite characters of all time. Cotterill's writing remains just stellar and the characterization excellent.

Terrier: Oh Tamora Pierce. If Robin McKinley started my life-long love of fantasy, Tamora Pierce's Alanna cemented it. But I haven't read much of her since that series, and Terrier has kind of called to me, since it was published. The first time I tried to read it I stumbled on some of the formatting stuff - different fonts for different prologue journals and I didn't like the fonts, which is a stupid reason not to read a book - but once I got past that this time I was in for good. Beka Cooper is fantastic and Pierce's sense of place, and use of language (oh my stars the slang) is everything I love. This is essentially a police procedural set in a fantasy world, exactly my catnip, and all tangled up in a coming-of-age story. Will be reading Bloodhound, hopefully won't take me until next January to get to it.

I'll save ranting about how much I loved Truthwitch for later. I hope. I had meant to write up my thoughts on Almanac two weeks ago, which is not a great sign. I'll get to it! And this is technically the end of Long Awaited Reads Month for me, but... that's not going to stop me from sticking to things that will feel good to read. I need it right now, at least until my lungs stop pretending they belong to my grandfather.

The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway

The River of No Return (River of No Return 1)
by Bee Ridgway
Dutton Adult, 2013
452 pages

I cannot figure out for the life of me why I didn't like this better than I did. Which is not to say I didn't enjoy it; I stayed up until 1:30am to finish it, and it kept my attention, and I didn't ever feel like throwing it across the room or giving up. I just didn't love it and I can't figure out why. And unfortunately I didn't take adequate notes, and so this review is going to be an awful lot shorter than it might otherwise have been.

It's exactly my kind of candy - historical romance (Regency, even), plus mystery, plus science fiction/fantasy. There are spicy bits, believable spicy bits. And it was smart and well-written, too. I did find it sagged in the middle, but to be honest, a lot of what I'm reading these days seems to sag in the middle and that suggests to me that it's more me than the book.

Nicholas Davenant used to be a marquess. He used to be fighting Napoleon, an officer in the British Army. But then one day, a Frenchman was about to cut him down - and instead of dying, Nicholas disappeared, jumping ahead in time to the twenty-first century. He is greeted there by a representative of the Guild, an organization devoted to finding, rescuing, and helping acclimatize those who make the jump from the past. He is taught how to build a new life, and while there are hints that things might not be perfect and he misses his family and his old life, he spends ten very happy years in Vermont, farming. But then his suspicions bear out - things aren't entirely right, he hasn't been told the whole truth, and he's about to learn all sorts of new and unsettling things from the Guild.

And that's only the summary of one character - Julia Percy, being the other, is an orphan, and neighbour to Nicholas' family. We meet her just as her beloved grandfather is dying, and she is about to be alone in the world, faced with a desperate, and desperately mean, cousin taking over the estate. The narrative switches back and forth between these two.

I didn't particularly love any of the characters, even though I enjoyed them and particularly Julia. I did love that Ridgway made things so complex; none of the characters are black and white, evil or not - even Mr. Mibbs, who does veer very close to irredeemable villain, has enough mystery surrounding him that I'm prepared to concede that he might have some sort of reason for being so thoroughly horrible. Arkady, for example, could have been a creepy, frightening, powerful villain - but while he's slightly creepy, and frightening, and powerful, he's not entirely villainous. His motives are clear and his actions, while repellant to the mains and therefore the reader, make a kind of sense. I believed that he believed he was doing the right thing, or at least, the righteous thing. That's not always an easy thing for an author to pull off.

The twists were varied and some of them I saw coming, and others I did not. It's a bit of a maze of a book, but it never really seemed to lose its way, if that makes sense, despite my feeling that things got a bit slow in the middle. The ending was a satisfying cliffhanger, if that makes sense. There's a lot to explore in the next book, and nothing feels quite safe or secure, which is exactly as it should be.

So why didn't I love it? I still can't say for sure. That I never really connected firmly with any of the characters is probably the big reason, but I'm not sure what it was that kept me from connecting. Certainly the plot was well-done and the historical bits very well-done, and the characters were interesting. It just didn't connect. So don't let me stop you from reading this, is what I am trying to say, if it tickles your fancy - you'll probably have better luck than me. But there is something mildly disappointing about finding book likeable when I really expected to love it.

The Bird of the River by Kage Baker

The Bird of the River (The Anvil of the World 3)
by Kage Baker
Tor Books, 2010
272 pages

I cannot possibly be objective about this book, because it is all my favourite things. It breaks my heart that there will be no more books in this series, and that this particular book has gone out of print without even a paperback run. Why, for gods' sakes, is no one reading Kage Baker?

Books like this only come along once in a very long while for me. And on the surface, Kage Baker's writing is... different? I want to say "workmanlike" but that doesn't do it anywhere near justice (though to be fair to "workmanlike" I actually very much appreciate writing that does what it's supposed to do without being fancy about it, even though I appreciate the fancy stuff too.) It's very storyteller-like. It's propulsive without being manipulative, it's clear, it's concise, it's descriptive in the ways that mark the important details and give the reader enough to build a sharp, clear picture without being overbearing. It's unsentimental but deeply respectful of her characters. It's simple without being patronizing. The pacing is spot-on.

Writing this makes me want to read it again right now.

Baker's writing is utterly unlike much of what I read, even though this book employs several familiar fantasy tropes. It felt new, though. I surprised myself by how much I loved this book in particular, even though I really liked The Hotel Under the Sand and Nell Gwynne's Scarlet Spy. But the idea of the book appealed to me. One of the things I love about it is that it is so unsentimental, which it shares very much in common with the first two Bakers I read. I said it's propulsive without being manipulative and I think that's one of the things that appeals so much to me about Baker's writing: she can make me feel attached and concerned and interested, without feeling like I've been told either implicitly or explicitly how I should feel. She was a writer who took her reader's intelligence and compassion for granted, and I like that very much.

The premise of this book caught my attention immediately. Eliss and her family, her younger half-brother and her drug addict mother, are trying to find work for her mother so that they can survive. Her mother is a diver and they're looking at river boats because in her mother's condition she isn't strong enough to dive in the sea as she used to. They find themselves upon the enormous barge The Bird of the River, a ship so large as to be a floating village unto itself. The crew's job is to clear the wide, slow river of snags and underwater hazards, so they need divers; Falena is hired, and Eliss and Alder start finding their own way upon the boat as well.

There's quite a lot more to the plot, and it explores themes of loss, racism (Alder is of mixed race, and part of the reason they can't settle down is because of the colour of his skin), violence, addiction, loyalty, family, poverty, love, coming-of-age. Which makes this book sound heavy and overloaded, but it simply isn't. This isn't an issues book - it's well-rounded and the issues are there because the world and the characters are rich and well-developed. None of them weigh this book down in the slightest.

I really, really loved this book. I'm hoping to find a paper copy even though the book is out-of-print. I know I'm going to want to read this again and again. Possibly tonight.

Naked in Death by JD Robb

Naked in Death (In Death 1)
by J.D. Robb
Brilliance Audio, 2010 (originally published in 1995)
5 discs, abridged

Welp, that was another abridged audiobook. It wasn't supposed to be, but it was what I could get, and I've wanted to try this series for a while now. For those not sure, yes, JD Robb is a different incarnation of redoubtable, prolific romance author Nora Roberts. This series is exceedingly popular and long-lived, and incredibly all 40 (40!!) entries in the series have above a 4 star rating on Goodreads. The setting appealed to me - I like mysteries, and the idea of a series set in a futuristic New York City, but still a police procedural and a romantic thriller, really tickled my fancy.

Lieutenant Eve Dallas is a young and very successful police inspector with the New York City Police and Security Department in the year 2058. After a particularly messy episode with a domestic assault and murder, in which she's been responsible for the death of the murderer, she's immediately called in to a top secret investigation involving the gruesome murder of the prostitute (legalized, now) granddaughter of a very powerful, very right-wing Southern Senator. The top suspect is the charming billionaire Roarke, a man with deep secrets. But as Eve grows to know Roarke she becomes convinced that his secrets don't include coldblooded murder (this one, at least.) And she finds herself increasingly fascinated by this contrarian, handsome, and likely very dangerous man.

I know why this series is so popular. It ticks off alllll the fantasies: young, scarily competent, slightly maverick, and secretly scarred detective; fancy gadgets that do cool things; a possible conspiracy of the powerful and a hard-ass boss for our detective to fight against; and very rich, very good-looking, very alpha male hero. The writing is extremely competent and even excellent in places. The tone is perfect. The plot is... not a big surprise at any point, exactly, but there's enough tension to keep it interesting. In short, this book is straight-out escapist fiction and it doesn't pretend to be anything else, and it's very, very good at what it does.

Any problems I had with this book really had to do with the abridgement I listened to and nothing else. And that's not even saying that the abridgement was poorly done; it wasn't. It's just that any romance that is abridged feels too fast, and mysteries that are abridged often leave clues that the author might have buried a little better feeling pretty bare. The predictability of both the plot and the identity of the murderer are partially due to the format I chose.

So I need to talk about Roarke and the alpha male hero. Intellectually I find myself pretty conflicted about this, but in some ways Robb(erts) has made this easy: Eve is not a wallflower, nor is she too perfect. She saves herself when she needs saving, but she's messy, and she makes an acceptable number of mistakes. I say "acceptable" because I really think that this kind of story needs a protagonist who makes errors, but she can't make too many because otherwise the story stops being enjoyable because the reader is too worried - Eve hits these notes perfectly and manages not to be either one-note or stereotypical; she's very likeable and she's very competent and she's not a push-over.

This is important, because Roarke is super-alpha. In his desire to take care of Eve and help her out, he does a couple of things that are pretty creepy if one thinks too hard about it. To the author's credit Eve calls him out on these things, but she doesn't do the sensible thing and get him out of her life entirely. And this is where I have trouble. I feel that, by enjoying the alpha male, I am somehow buying into a misogynistic social construct, and I don't like that. On the other hand, I also feel like it's unhelpful to suggest to women that certain avenues of fantasy or desire are off-limits or shameful. I don't have the background to be able to take this discussion too much further, and I obviously still have a need to work through it.

But simply: I enjoy Roarke as a hero, and I find the scenes with him romantic and sexy, and as a fantasy his behaviour doesn't creep me out, even if I encountered someone like him in real life I'd stay as far away from him as possible. I can spend as much time as I would like trying to justify this, but I think I just maybe need to own up to it: as a fantasy, this works for me. It can be borderline - there are alpha males I find just insufferable and not attractive at all - but something about this combination, Eve and Roarke, I find sexy and believable enough as a fantasy to enjoy the relationship.

If it's not clear from all of the above, I really enjoyed listening to this, and I'll definitely read/listen to more of the In Death series. Do I have the need to read all 40+ books? Maybe not, but I'm glad I've started. A solid mystery and vivid characters, with the bonus of a well-realized, very interesting and fun setting. If you're not a fan of the alpha male romance, steer clear, but this is a good bet for those who like that sort of thing. Even if you're a bit conflicted about it.

Old City Hall by Robert Rotenberg

Old City Hall
by Robert Rotenberg
Recorded Books, 2009
10 discs, unabridged

Here's an interesting case: a book I can acknowledge was not terribly well-written, in the main, but that I still quite liked.

I think I read a lot of things that aren't brilliant writing, and I generally enjoy them if they've got decent characters and a good story. It's pretty rare that I can ignore out-and-out poor writing so comprehensively as I did in this case. But Old City Hall was at least extremely entertaining to listen to, and at best it was great. The writing isn't consistently mediocre; it even has some very good moments. Enough that I have hope for the future books of this series.

And as I said, something did grab me. Maybe I just enjoyed hearing a mystery set in Toronto, or maybe in the end it was the characters - wooden and obscure as some of them felt - that did it.

A newspaper deliveryman arrives at the penthouse apartment in a downtown building at exactly his appointed time, bearing a copy of The Globe and Mail for Kevin Brace, Canada's most famous radio voice. But instead of the usual punctuality and polite chat he has come to expect, Brace meets Mr. Singh late, with blood on his hands and a stunned expression - "I killed her," he says. Sure enough, Brace's younger common-law spouse is naked and dead in the hallway bathroom, a single stab wound to her abdomen. Brace refuses to speak to anyone, including his lawyer, and the pieces in what should be a cut-and-dried case just don't quite fit.

Ari Greene is the lead detective, and the series is named for him, but this story is told from multiple perspectives as well as Greene's, including Nancy Parrish the defence lawyer, Arthur Fernandes the prosecutor, and Daniel Kennicot, a young criminal-lawyer-turned-police-officer. It's a fairly straightforward procedural and steeped in Toronto in deep winter. Because of the multiple perspectives we don't get terribly deep into the heads of any of the characters, and Greene is a bit of a cipher, though the bits with his father are lovely. Daniel Kennicot was the character who really stood out for me, and this is a good thing as things seem set up to continue with him as a main character throughout the series.

The problems come in with the plot, a little, and the writing, a lot. The plot is well-done, except that it starts to spin a little out of hand, as though Rotenberg was trying to jam as much in as he possibly could, and make comments on certain societal things. It gets complicated and I do like that while the mystery wraps up there's still enough messiness to make it believable. And while I enjoyed the procedural aspects of the book a lot, I did find that Rotenberg gets a bit explain-y. He gives the reader too much information - doesn't let us come to our own conclusions, about characters or about events - and he often gets a bit dry while talking about aspects of the legal system, such that he's almost taking the reader aside and saying, "okay, this is how this works, this is why these characters are doing that."

I don't really need to be told how close to reality it is, I'd rather feel it's close to reality, if that makes any sense.

Regardless, I enjoyed, and enough that I'm hoping to get to The Guilty Plea soon. Paul Hecht, by the way, does an excellent job of the narration. I kind of forgot I was driving sometimes, I was paying so close attention. I should probably watch out for that. Recommended for fans of light and easy-to-follow mysteries, especially if you want a different sort of setting, and want to experience a parallel universe where the Maple Leafs are actually kind of a hockey team and not a joke.

After the Golden Age by Carrie Vaughn

After the Golden Age
by Carrie Vaughn
Tor Fantasy, 2012
342 pages

Sometimes a girl just needs to shelf graze. I have an enormous TBR list; it's well over 1000 items now. I have series I'm half-finished and books I have to read for book club. But every once in a while I indulge in the luxury of browsing library shelves and seeing what sticks out, picking it up based on whatever information can be gleaned from the cover and the synopsis. One can find the most wonderful things that way.

Superheroes. Superhero comics. I have always more loved the idea of them than I've actually loved the comics themselves; though a big graphic novel fan, I've always found traditional superhero comics to be hard to follow, art-wise, and they are often darker, grimmer, grittier than I generally enjoy. But traditional superhero stories and tropes? I love them. So what is essentially a superhero comic in prose, sans visual art, is like candy. If it's a little light on the grit, so much the better. Add in one of my favourite concepts - exploring the superheroes from the perspective of the mundane folks around them - and I had trouble not thinking about this book all the time. I was stuck right in it. I revelled in being stuck. And, lest I over-think this in the following paragraphs, let me please make the point that not only was this book interesting in concept, it was so, so much fun.

The book follows the story of Celia West, only child to the greatest superheroes Commerce City has ever known. Celia has no superpowers herself, a grave disappointment to her parents, her father especially. Growing up she has struggled to find her place, to distinguish herself in her own right, to find her way out from behind her parents' shadows. Now a forensic accountant with a prestigious firm, she is assisting the DA put her parents' greatest enemy, the Destructor, behind bars by following his financial trail - much to her father's chagrin.

Okay, yes, the superheroes' daughter is a forensic accountant, which was probably my first big trigger to pick this up. I love mysteries, and I loved that Celia's job was so unglamourous compared to her superhero background (so does she.) Celia has had a rough go of it; in addition to being a major disappointment to her parents, she's a favourite target of the criminal elements of Commerce City, because of her known connection to the Olympiad, the organization of four superheroes who look after the city.

And now we have come to the point where the superheroes are middle-aged. Their nemesis is behind bars, their secret identities are blown. They still do their work, and they do it well, but they are past their prime. And some people know that, and they're about to take advantage of it. And Celia is going to get caught right in the middle, despite the fact that she has made it her life's work to stay as far out of her parents' way as she possibly can.

So, there are some problems with this book, and I'll get them out of the way first. I should say, too, that any problems I noted are generally the same sorts of problems that superhero comics enjoy: plot holes (how can the DA possibly ignore the major conflict of interest he introduces when he asks for Celia to work on the prosecution team?) and larger-than-life characters that seem a little static, a little rote (um, you know: superheroes.) I am pretty sure this isn't a coincidence. This book is nothing if not a loving homage to the superhero comic. It's not beyond investigating the tropes and poking a bit of fun, but overall it's going with the flow, and so what would probably lose me in a different kind of book only made me shake my head here.

I have been trying to figure out what, beyond the concept, kept me so very, very engaged, and I think it must have been Celia herself. The characters around her - even the potential love interests (less so for one than the other, certainly), and the friends - are comic book characters, perfectly groomed and inscrutable, fully committed to their missions and not terribly emotionally deep. Even Celia's father, Warren West aka Captain Olympus is very much a comic book character, and in Warren's case I think the intention was to get a little bit deeper.

The writing is pretty standard, by which I mean it fades into the background, which is much harder than it appears. Occasionally repetition was a bit of an issue; observations of certain facts or character traits were made more than strictly necessary, which occasionally felt like being foreblugeoned. Flashbacks are present, so if you're not a fan, watch out. They actually had less of an impact on the pacing than I usually find flashbacks do, though I'm not sure they did exactly what they were supposed to do, which was (I think) deepen my understanding of and sympathy for Celia. I liked her just fine without the flashbacks, and still didn't exactly buy her stupid mistake, even when it was shown and not just told. Which, maybe, was part of the point? That it was as inexplicable and uncomfortable to her, looking back, as it was to everyone else around her?

This is a gentle, fond examination of superhero tropes and ideas. The superhuman past his prime. Superhero as concerned parent unable to handle a rebellious teenager. Vigilante justice. Superhero-police relations. Hero worship. Celebrity media culture. What Vaughn does, to good effect, is to take the superhero story at face value: the city is called Commerce City, the superheroes have names like The Bullet and Captain Olympus and Typhoon, all without apparent cynicism or irony. They have a secret command post, various outlandish vehicles. Looked at through the eyes of a mundane observer, even one entirely used to the spectacle, this all takes on a faintly ridiculous cast, but it's taken seriously. Vaughn takes some of this to its logical conclusion, too: what would it really be like to have telepathic powers? What would happen if a superhero was caught out after curfew and shot at? How would it feel to grow up knowing you could never, ever, even in your wildest dreams, follow in your father's footsteps? How would a superhero act at the dinner table over delivered pizza? (The answer: not well.) What I mean is, I wouldn't call this a parody or a satire, nor a tribute, exactly. It's something in between. It's a fine line to walk, I think, and it's so well done.

Highly, highly readable, enormously entertaining, funny, sweet, occasionally moving, and sometimes thought-provoking. Recommended if you're a fan of fantasy or a fan of comics. There is a follow-up, Dreams of the Golden Age, which has just been released, and which I already have on hold. I loved living in this world and I'm really looking forward to going back.

The Mummy Case by Elizabeth Peters

The Mummy Case (Amelia Peabody 3)
by Elizabeth Peters
Blackstone Audio, 2009
11 discs, unabridged

I was thinking that perhaps I view the Amelia Peabody mysteries as a "guilty pleasure" the other night, and then I realized that I don't actually feel terribly guilty about enjoying them so much. They are tremendously campy, silly, and grossly far-fetched, but what's wrong about enjoying them for that? Coming from someone whose reading motto resembles something like "never apologise" it seems odd that I should view reading anything as a guilty pleasure.

I get such a kick out of these books, and just that makes them worth reading. They are mysteries, sure, but it's not the mystery that's the draw. There's very little serious suspense, other than wondering exactly how the Emersons going to pull things off this time, and maybe sometimes a bit of wondering over the details of the cases. For whatever reason, what I would regard as unforgivable forebludgeoning in most other books gets a free pass here.

No, not for "whatever reason," actually. It's the characters, Amelia specifically, but the others as well. Amelia is the first-person narrator: the books are her journals. And Amelia is blessed with copious amounts of self-confidence and a finely honed sense of Victorian melodrama, leading to lots of "It did not occur to me to be concerned... at the time..." sorts of statements. Forebludgeoning, yes, but perfectly in character. And since I don't read (er, listen to) these books for the plots I don't particularly care about being heavily spoiled in advance.

Amelia Peabody is one of the great characters I have encountered, I think. She is somehow endearing in her brash sense of oblivious superiority (which is always played for laughs at Amelia's expense, except for one moment in this book, where Amelia's confidence in herself and her countryfolk is thrown back at her, and well-deserved, too) and her sharp intelligence. She would probably be less bearable except that she is often right. And not only that, she's willing, if extremely reluctant, to admit when she's wrong, too. Or at least lead the reader of her journals to draw that conclusion on their own, even if she won't explicitly say it. She is a well-defined, larger-than-life woman who both leaps off the page and feels real enough that I am willing to suspend any disbelief in following her around.

Aside from the character, I love the setting. Victorian-era Egypt and archaeology are fascinating places to visit (I wouldn't have wanted to live there.) Peters always brings it alive. She knew her archaeology and her history, and she uses Amelia's enthusiasm and passion to share some of that with us. I will admit that if anyone gave me a test on any facts I should have picked up from this book I wouldn't fare so well. It turns out I'm not reading to learn about Ancient Egypt either, though I find it fascinating at the time.

I should warn: anyone who has not read the first two books will necessarily encounter spoilers for those first two in the following paragraphs.

In this book, Amelia and Radcliffe (hereafter referred to as "Emerson" since I can't think of him any differently) are heading back to Egypt, and have decided to take their terrifyingly precocious son Ramses with them. Emerson is determined that they shall dig at the pyramids at Dahshoor, but instead they are relegated to the "pyramids" at Mazghunah, a field of rubble that may in fact once have been pyramids, but now bears little resemblance to the structures Amelia is so taken with. Despite her disappointment, Amelia at least has a mystery to keep her occupied: a suspected ring of antiquities thieves are flooding the market with some very choice items that are thus lost to science forever, and she suspects the murder of an acquaintance - a not-quite-honest antiquities dealer in Cairo - is connected.

The fact that even though things get just completely, utterly ridiculous at the end I still ate this up, and happily, suggests the power that Amelia Peabody (and Elizabeth Peters) has over me. I believe I even shouted "Are you serious?!" at the CD player in the car at one point because Amelia, despite not being stupid, does some incredibly rash things and I could see, clear as day, that things were not going to go well. The fact that she's cheerfully upfront about this (dissecting the situation postmortem, as she is) goes some way toward mitigating my mildly appalled astonishment. The other thing is that Amelia doing incredibly rash things near the close of a book (and upfront too, really, if we're counting) is hardly out of character.

I suppose one could start at this book quite comfortably in the series. I do think that the relationship between Emerson and Amelia, and the relationship they have with their son, is portrayed strongly enough in this third book that one wouldn't need to have a background in it, though I do think that Crocodile on the Sandbank is the stronger of the three books and would certainly recommend starting there instead. This, however, is a perfectly adequate outing in this series, neither surprising nor disappointing, and as entertaining as I expected and hoped.

Earlier books in the Amelia Peabody series:
1. Crocodile on the Sandbank
2. Curse of the Pharaohs

The Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis

The Silver Pigs
by Lindsey Davis
Minotaur Books, 2006 (originally published in 1989)
352 pages

This book has the dubious distinction of (I think) being the book that I have been reading for longest. In that, I started it sometime last year, and took an enormous hiatus, and picked it back up again just about ten days ago because of a conversation I had with a co-worker who is an avid reader. See, my copy here is an ebook, and while this might have been the longest break I have taken with a book, it's not the first time I have stopped reading an ebook somewhere in the middle just by virtue of the fact that a paper book has come along and supplanted it. Even if I'm enjoying the ebook, they seem to somehow take a lower precedence, particularly if I own the book and it isn't going to vanish back into library holdings within a certain number of days.

I picked up The Silver Pigs exactly where I left off. And even while I wasn't reading this book I was thinking about Falco, wondering how he was getting on. (Not well, as it happened: when I left him, he'd just fallen down an old mineshaft, broken his leg, and it was starting to snow.) I have thought about this book almost more regularly than almost any other for the duration of the hiatus, even if I wasn't quite moved to pick up the book again. I remembered exactly where we were, exactly what had happened prior, and even some of the salient names. That said, it was the names just about undid me, coming back. There are a fairly large number of important characters, all with Ancient Roman names, which do have a habit of sounding somewhat similar to this modern-day Canadian.

I have a very weak spot for historical novels that can really bring the past to life for me, that can make the so-called "little people" of history - not the big names that we all know - as real to me as someone living across the street. I have not made my love of Brother Cadfael and his world a secret here. And it looks like I will have to add Marcus Didius Falco to my list of favourite historical private investigators, too. Fans of Ancient Roman history and trivia in particular should take note: Davis has done her homework. She is also the first to admit (in the Introduction to the edition that I read) that she's probably got some things wrong, in the way that it would almost be impossible to avoid, since we are only ever speculating on exactly how day-to-day life was lived by the Romans. In fact, she notes that in some ways the entire premise of this particular book falls apart since the fraud being committed would have been impossible given new information on how the silver pigs were used.

But halt. What, exactly, is The Silver Pigs about? And no. It has nothing to do with pigs.

Marcus Didius Falco is an informer - what one, these days, might call a private eye. But as Falco is living and working in Rome around 70AD, the term "private eye" would be a bit of anachronism. One day, out in the Forum, Falco bumps into a young woman in obvious distress, and being the rather soft-hearted cad he is, he decides on the spur of the moment to help her out. Unfortunately, it appears that the beautiful young Sosia has gotten herself into much deeper trouble than either of them realize, and it eventually falls to Falco to uncover and thwart a plot that strikes at the very heart of the new Emperor Vespasian.

It's a great deal more complicated than that, and it's also a tremendous amount of fun. The story has a vaguely noir feel to it. Falco is certainly verging on a hardboiled detective, with the same curt way of speaking, the same crusty exterior, the same whatever-it-takes attitude, and the same heart of gold that one expects in the [anti]heroes of that genre. There are beautiful women, dangerous men, a loyal sidekick. There's a dark, self-deprecating sense of humour. But Falco also has a family - a mother he is in awe of, though he tries not to show it, a gaggle of sisters, an adored niece. And the setting is unique, and wonderful. Davis has thoroughly fleshed out Ancient Rome and Britania in a way that really does make it almost tangible to a modern-day reader.

Falco was a bit much for me at first. His hardboiled attitude seemed overblown, a little unbelievable. But he grew on me (like a bad rash, he might say.) Also, as I said above, the names were a bit much for me, and not just when I'd taken a break and was coming back. It took some time for characters not Falco to come into focus and sort themselves out into actual people. Once they did, though, they began to leap off the page in the way Falco did.

I've ended this book craving more Falco, and more Ancient Rome. Lucky for me, there are many more Falco books for me to explore. I shouldn't be starting new series at this point; I have so, so many on the go. But this is one I am very glad I started. Recommended for fans of historical fiction, mysteries, and books that do not take themselves too seriously, but just seriously enough.

Deja Dead by Kathy Reichs

Déjà Dead (Tempe Brennan 1)

by Kathy Reichs (read by Amy Irving)

Simon and Schuster Audio, 1998 (as part of the "A Deadly Audio Collection" compilation)

5 discs, abridged

Another case of me kind of cheating on the "Canadian" designation, as Kathy Reichs is pretty firmly American, but she also works in Canada (Quebec, specifically) and the entirety of this novel is set in Montreal. So there. I claim this as a Canadian crime novel.

And I liked it. I really did. It was also another case of me discovering after the fact that it was an abridgment, but in this case, with a few caveats, I didn't actually mind. I think the things that were missing were okay to be missing, with a couple of exceptions that I will get into in the following paragraphs. The production on the audiobook was excellent; Amy Irving as the reader was just great. She had the perfect voice, the perfect intonation, and the perfect pacing for Tempe's first person narration. I was hooked pretty much immediately and I fully intend to listen to the next book in the series at some point. Whether or not I listen to it abridged or unabridged remains to be seen. Abridged is much more accessible to me at this time, so I'll probably go that way.

This is the first of the Dr. Temperance Brennan books, made somewhat more popular than they already were by the advent of the television series Bones. The thought of reading this appealed to my book club because it's a forensic mystery -- a genre we had yet to read from -- plus it has a Canadian connection. Dr. Brennan, or Tempe, is a professor of anthropology in North Carolina, and a forensic anthropologist on the staff at the Laboratoire des Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale in Montreal, Quebec. Tempe is called to go ensure that some bones found near an old burial site are in fact old human bones, but it doesn't take long for her to realize that they're not that old at all -- and the person the bones belonged to didn't die from any natural cause, nor did she end up in pieces by accident. Further, Tempe notices some alarming similarities between this body and another she examined not long ago. What started as a simple call leads to an increasingly tense murder investigation. Tempe can't seem to convince the powers that be that a serial killer might be at work; and even when she does, it turns out she might be his next target, putting those closest to her at risk.

This is not a book for the faint of heart. The murders are grisly, over-the-top, sadistic serial killer murders, and the conditions the bodies are found in are very well-described. And this book employs my absolute least favourite murder mystery trope: This Time It's Personal. Further, the tension is ramped up heavily as we get towards the end of the story. So one would think that this book wouldn't be my cup of tea, with the least-favourite-trope plus heart-pounding-occasionally-gory-suspense-thriller. In the hands of a lesser storyteller, with a less fabulous central character, with less fascinating science, in a different setting, with a different reader, I'm pretty sure I would have put this one aside. But by the time it became clear to me where we were headed -- and when the foreshadowing got a little heavy-handed for me -- I was so interested in the whole thing I couldn't stop.

In addition to This Time It's Personal, Tempe also suffers from a bit of Horror Movie Heroine Syndrome, in that she makes some really dumb decisions for reasons that are not explained in full but appear to be entirely driven by plot. I get that Tempe is a bit brash and hasty, and I get that she's fighting for acceptance in a man's world, but heading out to a possible body-dump location by yourself in the dark in a storm is stupid. Especially if the killer knows that you know where to go. A killer who has already indicated that he's targeting you. There are a couple of incidents along the same lines, which really stretches believability, or perhaps just patience, with Tempe's character. But she was also incredibly likable, and smart, and abrasive in that somewhat endearing way. She is close to her daughter, she is leaving a shaky marriage reluctantly, she loves living alone with her cat.

Small issues with the fleshing out of Tempe's character are what makes me think I was missing stuff with the abridgement. Particularly towards the end of the novel, when I wanted to see Tempe reacting a bit more realistically to some of the awful things that have happened, I am wondering if there were things cut for abridging purposes that would have made Tempe a more well-rounded, psychologically interesting character; as it was, I liked her, but she didn't seem to even really think about certain things except perfunctorily, and they didn't seem to carry much traumatic weight. I can't discuss much further for fear of spoiling. I can fill in some of the gaps with my own imagination, but I'm not sure I should have to, given how well-written the book seems to be in places, and how rounded Tempe is in other matters. This bothered me as being lazy, an author wanting to have a sensational climax without having to give her main character suitable baggage for the rest of the series. Or possibly it's just abridged.

So there you go -- a book I probably shouldn't have liked given some of the issues with it, but in the end I really did like it, and I'm looking forward to the next. Recommended for crime/thriller fans who like their science, but can suspend disbelief fairly handily when it comes to certain plot points.

Death at La Fenice by Donna Leon

Death at La Fenice (Commissario Guido Brunetti #1)
by Donna Leon
Grove Press, 1992
288 pages

Donna Leon is one of those authors that keeps cropping up in my life. Mostly due to Shelagh Rogers, who is a big fan. I kept hearing about the setting and the food. An interesting, unusual (to me) setting is something I quite like in a murder mystery, I am beginning to recognize. And I love books that use food wisely. This book didn't disappoint. The setting is delightful (though I have very romantic and vague notions of Venice, of course, and I must admit I still do.) The mystery very well-crafted, one of the more carefully crafted and methodical mystery plots I've encountered lately. The detective is solid and good, and also interesting enough to carry the story.

Summary: the book begins with an opera, La Traviata, opening at Venice's famed La Fenice. Or rather, it begins with the third act of the opera stalling -- rather than the actors and the maestro, as expected, the theatre's manager comes on stage to ask for a doctor. It turns out that the maestro, a German musical genius and extremely famous man, has taken ill. Actually, it turns out that he's quite dead, of cyanide poisoning. Enter Commissario Guido Brunetti, to attempt to unravel the mysteries of the performing arts world and the murky history of Maestro Wellauer.

First of all, I think this is a really excellent police procedural. Brunetti has to put in the time to solve the mystery, and though I suspected the solution I certainly didn't suspect the why. We follow Brunetti through the city, through his days, through the late nights (and the not-so-late nights -- the man has a family, and he spends time with them, wonder of wonders.) We follow him through the tedium of dealing with a foppish, useless supervisor, and through the careful piecework of interviewing and research. There is not a lot of action, but the book never feels slow. There may or may not be a few little leaps of logic that I didn't follow (not sure sometimes why Brunetti spent his time where he did, and a little suspicious that it was too convenient that he did happen to spend his time there) but overall I decided to take that as a detective's hunch rather than a plot device.

I enjoyed that the characters feel like they have lots of room to grow without feeling like they are just cutouts or placeholders. Mostly. There are a few who appear as though they were just introduced so that we know they exist for later books. Even in this, the first of a long series, Brunetti has a very distinct personality and some quirks that sometimes we are told about, but that sometimes we see.

I didn't love the twist at the end that led Brunetti to solve the mystery, not because it was out of place or poorly done, but because it was super disturbing and I unfortunately am blessed and cursed with a very good imagination. Hard to talk about this without spoilers, but let's just say I appreciated Brunetti's solution to the quandary he was in.

Glad to find the read as solid as I expected, given the love shown Leon by various people whose opinions I respect. Looking forward to the next; I have a feeling they get even better.

The Secret of the Mansion by Julie Campbell

The Secret of the Mansion
by Julie Campbell
Random House, 2003 (originally published in 1948)
272 pages

I read a lot of Nancy Drew as a kid. Imagine my horror when I went back to read some of them again, just for kicks. It turns out that (hold on -- this may come as distressing news to some of you) Nancy Drew is not very well-written. Certainly not the first one, anyway, and I am saddened; I loved her so much as a kid. I couldn't even get past the first half of the book.

My mother, on the other hand, really loved Trixie Belden, and for some reason I just couldn't get as invested. Maybe it was that Nancy was older and cooler -- but it turns out that, as an adult reader, I far prefer Trixie. So I introduced my parent-child book club to her, with mixed results. Some of them really enjoyed the experience -- the boys, mostly, which surprised me, and the older generations, which did not -- and others were so frustrated by the repeated "golly! golly! golly!" and by Trixie calling her mother "Moms" that they just couldn't get into the book. That, and the fact that the pacing seemed kind of slow to them. Funny how a little thing starts to stick out like a sore thumb when there's an underlying dissatisfaction with the way a story is told.

I was somewhere in the middle. I wouldn't say I loved The Secret of the Mansion, which is the first of the Trixie Belden series and one I had never read before, but I rather enjoyed it, and I even kept it past the book club date to finish it (I didn't find it as fast a read as I'd hoped to.) The "golly" and even the "Moms" didn't really bother me, but the pacing did, and the tendency to melodramatic chapter endings followed by "ha ha, it was just a chicken" kinds of chapter beginnings wore a bit thin. I realize this is a certain kind of convention, particularly in children's mystery novels, but it quickly loses its shine for an adult reader.

So, for a quick summary: Trixie lives with her mother and father and three brothers on Crabapple Farm on the Hudson River. Her older brothers, Brian and Mart, are off at summer camp, and Trixie is looking at a summer of housework and helping out with younger brother Bobby, trying to earn enough money to buy a horse. It doesn't hold a lot of allure to her, and she's desperate for some excitement. Luckily, at almost the same time, a new girl Trixie's age moves into one of the two neighbouring mansions and a runaway hides out at the other, and rumours of a hidden fortune in the latter mansion start to heat things up.

Considering the book was first written in 1948, it holds up surprisingly well. It's certainly of its time, but in such an accessible way that though the language (see: "golly") was a bit of a barrier for some of the kids, most of the group had no trouble relating to Trixie and Honey and Jim. The family dynamic is a lovely background -- Trixie's father's a kind, generous man who takes the time to listen to his daughter; Trixie's mother is busy but supportive and trusts Trixie to be responsible; Bobby, Trixie's younger brother, is cute but exasperating and Trixie loves him dearly and also finds him a pain in the neck. The friendship between Trixie and Honey is well-done, too, if a little rushed, but it's rushed in that kind of believable way -- there are no other girls around for Trixie to hang out with, and Honey is lonely and wants a friend, and they're both of that age when passions are high and a potential friend can become a best friend in a day.

Most interestingly for me is that Trixie is not a perfect heroine, and I actually found her a bit hard to like at first. She's wildly impulsive, acts and speaks well before she thinks, shirks her chores, and is judgmental and selfish and pushy. Except that she's also very clever, very genuine, responsible, kind-hearted, and incredibly generous, too. Yes, some of that contradicts, and that makes total sense. She is a thirteen-year-old girl, a tomboy with three brothers. She's a complex character and I grew to appreciate that, versus Nancy Drew's weirdly perfect, mini-adult (and frankly, boring) demeanor. Trixie's the kind of girl I would have loved to know as a kid, but would have been too shy to approach. She would have scared me a bit, and I bet she would have lit up a room.

The plot itself is relatively thin for a mystery, and read more like an adventure story than a mystery to me. Further, it was interesting to me how much "teaching" was done in the text -- [largely outdated] first aid tips, fairly detailed discussions of rabies (aka "hydrophobia") and the habits of skunks, how to ride a horse, that sort of thing. Some of it was a bit info-dumpy, but I thought it was also kind of neat. I did feel that it was my duty to dissuade my group from thinking that the way Trixie handles a poisonous snake bite is the way to do it, though.

I'd like to eventually read the entire Trixie Belden series, but I don't think it's the sort of thing I'll be doing all at once. As I said above, it wasn't a favourite read, but I did really like the characters and I'd love to see how things evolve, at least in the first six books, which were all written by Julie Campbell. It wasn't a fast read, though, and I had enough mild irritation with it that I think I'll space the books out a fair bit. Recommended with caveats, the caveat being that you probably want to be reading this to the sort of kid who enjoys historical fiction, and doesn't mind an old style of adventure story pacing, and won't get irritated by repeated uses of the word "golly."

Thirty-Three Teeth by Colin Cotterill

Thirty-Three Teeth

by Colin Cotterill

Soho, 2005

195 pages

This book grew on me. It had to; at the beginning, I wasn't at all happy with the direction things were taking after the first scene (which was excellent). I wasn't exactly bored, but I wasn't getting what I wanted to get out of the book. And yet, something kept me reading. By the time I was done, I was totally, happily satisfied.

Thirty-Three Teeth is the second in Colin Cotterill's series about Dr. Siri Paiboon, Head Coroner in Communist Laos in the seventies. We start with the disappearance of an old, abused bear from her cage at the local "luxury" hotel (the scene I loved) and subsequent maulings -- an open-and-shut case, one might think, except that nothing in a Siri Paiboon mystery is as it seems. And just when things are getting interesting in Vientiane, Siri is spirited off to Luang Prabang in the north of the country to investigate a couple of very, very crispy corpses under the direction of one nasty, rude governor. Then it's back to Vientiane to save his friend Inspector Phosy, Dtui the nurse gets to do some investigation of her own, a close call with the fledgling justice system, and righting various wrongs, both spiritual and mundane.

What worried me at the beginning was twofold: there was some rather clumpsy recapping of earlier events (necessary, perhaps, though I'm not even sure of that; I think Cotterill could trust his readers to hang on even if they're not quite sure what's going on, because he writes that well.) The second problem is that a chunk of this book is spent with Siri learning more about his newfound spiritual powers, and we edge pretty firmly across the line from magic realism to outright fantasy, except that... well, I don't want to spoil much for you, but the explanations for many of the happenings turn out to be less magical and more mundane than I expected. And where they are magical, they are still rather mundane, and always deeply rooted in the culture and beliefs of the Laotian people. A favourite scene: the obnoxious general in Luang Prabang tries to get the shamans to let the royal spirits know that they're expected to conform under the new communist rules (take up residence as working spirits in designated temples, that sort of thing, or be exiled to the north) -- which simultaneously says an awful lot about how seriously the spirits are taken, as well as how ridiculous politics can get very quickly. The scene is also very funny and full of tension.

It's that kind of twisty unravelling, dry humour, and mixture of melancholy, darkness, and light that kept me reading, even when I was feeling like we were spending a lot more time on magical shenanigans than I wanted to in a mystery novel. Cotterill knows how to balance the distressing with the amusing with the moving with the absurd, and he can keep the plot moving, and he provides wonderful, full characters to boot. I have never really read anything quite like these novels and I am tremendously glad there are more of them out there for me to dig into.

A note on the writing itself, too: Cotterill has a knack for a marvellously odd turn of phrase, particularly metaphor. I am sure some of this comes straight out of the Laotian language and the culture, and I am also sure that Cotterill comes up with a few of his own; he uses them unashamedly, and even though some of them are odd and perhaps a bit too florid, they also cause this reader to stop and think -- "huh, I know exactly what he means." Another example of Cotterill's ability to make wonderful connections are his titles. The man knows how to title a book. The titles are odd, attention-catching, and perfectly, perfectly apt. It's a small thing, but very pleasing.

As with the previous book in the series, highly recommended. This one is not quite as good, but stick with it and you'll be rewarded. For armchair travellers, mystery lovers, fans of the tangled and complex, those who love a good, observant, level-headed, kind, and charming lead character wrapped up in excellent writing and really interesting plots. I'd start at the beginning, just because The Coroner's Lunch is the better book. Looking forward to Disco for the Departed, when the chance arises.

Other books in the Dr. Siri Paiboon series:

1. The Coroner's Lunch

The Virgin in the Ice by Ellis Peters

The Virgin in the Ice
by Ellis Peters
Macmillan, 1982
220 pages

This book has everything: murder, politics, possible elopements and runaways, battles, mysterious heroes, snowstorms, fires, and more. And somehow it all works. Just barely, at points, but as a loyal fan I can overlook the coincidences that show the straining seams of the plot. Because this is Cadfael at his finest, in the dead of winter, with Hugh at his back, and a seemingly untenable tangle of mysteries ahead of him.

We start shortly after the sack of Worcester by Empress Maud's forces, a strike at King Stephen in the seemingly interminable English civil war (we're at the tail end of 1139, for those keeping track.) Refugees from Worcester have made it to Shrewsbury, but three expected refugees have not arrived: a nun from the Benedictine convent at Worcester and her two charges, a noble lady of seventeen years and her thirteen-year-old brother. Their uncle and guardian, a knight recently returned from the Crusades, is desperate to search for them -- but he is for the Empress, and cannot travel in the lands held by the King to search for them without risking capture or death. At the same time, Cadfael is called to the priory at Bromfield to care for a Benedictine brother who has been found stripped naked and beaten near to death in the snow. It is not long, of course, before Cadfael realizes that things are far more dire, and deadly, than they first appear.

I do really love this series. I am extremely attached to the returning characters -- Cadfael especially, but I am also really fond of Hugh -- and as stated in earlier reviews, I tend to grow attached to the characters we meet and leave within the course of one of these novels, as well. Characters like Josce de Dinan are drawn in a few spare lines, but that's all it takes for Peters to make them real people. She does even better with those she follows closely through the book. We spend a fair bit of time with Yves Hugonin, the young boy lost between Worcester and Shrewsbury, and he's a believable, tremendously sympathetic character. His sister is less sympathetic but all the more believable for that, too. We don't see a lot of the Shrewsbury group at all, aside from Hugh, as all the action takes place at Bromfield Priory and environs. It was occurring to me that we haven't really seen anything of Prior Robert, Cadfael's main thorn-in-the-side in the first books, since the advent of Abbot Radulfus, and I wonder if that's because Peters felt she was done with his character and Radulfus has Robert well in hand, or whether there's more Prior Robert in books ahead.

The plot here is, as mentioned above, packed. Perhaps slightly too much so, and if I have any complaint its that the coincidences needed to bring the murder plot to conclusion and those to begin another plot -- that I have to believe will be a series-long side-plot -- just really, really strain even my credulous belief. I'm willing to go with it because the trappings are so excellent, but I'll admit to a raised eyebrow and an eye-roll, particularly at the resolution of the murder plot. This is also possibly because of the dramatic fashion in which it is brought to its end, which seemed a little unnecessary. Though perhaps not out of character for the series, so it's not entirely unexpected, if not entirely forgiven.

What I might call the main plot -- the search for the Hugonin children, which becomes enmeshed in the search for, and need to deal with, a very nasty band of outlaws plaguing the Ludlow region -- is done extremely well. The tension builds until the conclusion to this plot follows entirely from events leading up to it, and even if it's a bit extra dramatic that somehow didn't seem out of place or eye-roll-worthy here. These outlaws are not Robin Hood-like chivalrous bandits; they're nasty thugs, slaughtering, pillaging, raping, and destroying everything and everyone in their path. I had a couple of bad moments where I worried for Hugh, Yves, and especially Brother Elyas, the poor soul Cadfael travels to Bromfield to heal.

An extra bonus was reading this during the best winter we've had here in Southern Ontario in ages. Reading about frozen brooks and deadly storms when we've got two feet of snow outside is a nice alignment. Peters does winter well, and it created a suitably chilling backdrop to the tale. Though I can't help but wonder whether monks got cold draughts up the legs, if they were just wearing their habits all winter? Cadfael's a hardy soul, but that can't have been comfortable.

All in all, great fun. Because the cast is nearly entirely new, you could probably start here with the series if you wished, though you may have less tolerance for coincidental shenanigans than I did if you haven't engaged with the characters and series conventions in previous books. Not deep reading, though not entirely brainless either. The theme here was apportioning blame, and the hubris inherent in taking responsibility for more than your share. Not as deeply explored as I might have liked -- there was too much plot to allow for such introspection -- but nevertheless there. I am, as always, looking forward to the next book, The Sanctuary Sparrow.

Earlier books in the Brother Cadfael Chronicles:
1. A Morbid Taste for Bones
2. One Corpse Too Many
3. Monk's-Hood
4. Saint Peter's Fair
5. The Leper of Saint Giles

The Coroner's Lunch by Colin Cotterill

The Coroner's Lunch
by Colin Cotterill
Soho, 2004
272 pages

I don't think I could have asked for a better way to start the year. This series of mysteries about Dr. Siri Paiboon, Head Coroner for the fledgling communist regime in Laos in the 1970s, has been on my radar for a long time. I decided to pick the first one up for my mother for Christmas, as she's always on the lookout for new mystery series; I decided I'd better read it first before I gave it to her, to make sure it was as good as the internet whispers suggested. (In my defence: I read a library copy, not the shiny new one that arrived for her!) And it was as good as I had hoped. Maybe even better.

A lot of the buzz around Dr. Siri suggests some sort of relation to Mma Ramotswe of No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency fame. I find this a bit misleading, because though there are some similarities, the tone of the books is completely different. Both do feature protagonists who have lived full lives before coming to their own as detectives, who aren't particularly concerned about the establishment and authority, and both are set in locales far different from the vast, vast majority of English-language mysteries out there. But I think the similarities stop there, really, and I almost find it a bit... irksome that because these two series are set in different "exotic" locations they get lumped together by critics.

This book, at least, was a lot darker, and the pacing was faster, and the stakes were higher than I recall from No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (and yes, I did really like that book too, but it's a very different animal.) People die. In unpleasant ways. Siri is doing a complex dance of trying to get to the truth and trying to work within a new system that hasn't really figured itself out yet. He's dealing with political intrigue as much as individual cases. In some ways, though, it is also deceptively gentle; Siri himself is a wryly observant, obstinate, and compassionate soul with a crusty exterior. He's not afraid of much, even the things he should be, but he does worry about those around him.

Dr. Siri Paiboon happens to be the last qualified (and we use this term loosely) person left in Laos to be head coroner after the victory of the communist rebels over the monarchy. Everyone else with the necessary education has fled the country. After being part of the cause for 40 years, he had assumed he'd get to rest to the end of his days -- he is 72, after all, decades older than the average life expectancy of his countrymen. But he is pressed into service despite the fact that he's never performed an autopsy in his life, and he's not particularly pleased to have to start now. Hampered by lack of supplies, experience, and co-operation from his superiors at the Justice Department, Siri sets out to do the best job he can with what he has. Things plod along slowly until one Mrs. Nitnoy, wife of a senior official in the new government, shows up in his freezer -- and is just as quickly hustled out by her now widowed husband, before Siri has the chance to finish his autopsy and his report.

And that's not all. Before long, Siri has someone who might have been a top-secret Vietnamese diplomat on his table, and a couple of senior military officials who died very, very strangely are waiting for him in the south of the country... and Siri is about to be busier, and in a lot more trouble, than he has been in a long, long time.

I am having trouble writing this review largely because I don't want it to be ten thousand words long. The summary is bare-bones, and look at the size of it! There is a lot of complexity here in this relatively short book.

I really, really enjoyed this read, more than I expected to once I realized that it wasn't just straight forensic mystery. Because Siri isn't just a coroner and a scientist and a very sharp amateur detective, but he also happens to see the spirits of the dead in his dreams. I wasn't sure how that was going to work for me when it popped up pretty much in the second chapter. And then it got weirder and I was carried along with the flow, because it all grew out of the plot and characters and setting so organically. I have nothing against fantasy, but I do have trouble when I'm not expecting my straight-up mysteries and fantasy to cross (see: Maisie Dobbs.) But here, Siri's visions didn't feel out of place or odd, nor did they feel at all deus ex machina. Even when things got really weird in the middle of the book, I was right there along for the ride. It didn't have a fantasy feel to me. And I think I can put this down to two things: it felt culturally appropriate, and the fact that even though he gets visions, nothing is spelled out for Siri. He still has to figure the clues out, and so does the reader. It's just that some of the clues don't happen to have been spotted in the corporeal realm.

The bones of this book are excellent. Cotterill has a real grasp on the time and place and culture, and he's creative with his characters, and his plots (there are several) are twisted and thrilling and deftly managed. The writing is funny (often very funny) without making fun, descriptive while managing a wonderful concision, and there is a dry factuality about all of it, mixed with the colour of the Laotian language and culture, that really works. The setting feels foreign, as it should to me, but without ever making me feel like I couldn't understand what was going on, or that I couldn't connect with the humans populating the story. Cotterill is both clear-eyed and respectful.

The only thing that didn't work for me, although I can understand why he did it, was the extreme ending of the story. The last few lines. And the reason those didn't work was because it felt a little forced-cliffhanger to me, where I could have been quite happy if those same few lines had turned up at the beginning of the next book. I wouldn't have felt manipulated. That said, it's a small transgression, relatively, and easily forgiven. I can hardly wait to read the next book, Thirty-Three Teeth. Except that I have about a million other series I really should try to read from, too...

Recommended for mystery readers, and armchair travellers. Yes, if you liked Mma Ramotswe, you'll probably like this too. But you'll also like it if you like political intrigue, forensic mysteries, and historical fiction.

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

Murder on the Orient Express
by Agatha Christie
Berkley, 2000 (originally published in 1933)
245 pages

Hooray, another conquest in our quest to read a bunch of Golden Age mystery novels! I am not doing so well with this quest; fishy is doing much better, but here, finally, is another one (the first, and only other, one I have read was Strong Poison, though I think The Big Sleep almost counts too; it's the right era, and a backlash against the original, tidy British cozies). Agatha Christie is such a giant of the mystery world, and still so very popular. I feel that reading at least one book by her is part of my ongoing quest to be a better librarian. And so we picked, with some help, the famous Murder on the Orient Express. Trains! Blizzards! Murder most foul!

Murder most incredibly complicated, more like. Let's see. The incomparable Hercule Poirot is on his way back to London after an unspecified but clearly successful investigation for the French army in Syria. He had intended to take the train to Stamboul and be a tourist for a couple days before continuing on, but an urgent telegram from London reaches him in Stamboul when they arrive, and he manages to squeeze passage on the remarkably full sleeping car, the Stamboul-Calais coach, thanks to his dear friendship with M. Bouc, the director of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons Lits. And on the second night out, in the midst of a blizzard as the train is stopped by snow on the tracks, the inevitable happens: the man in the cabin next to M. Poirot is brutally murdered, stabbed twelve times, sometime between midnight and two in the morning.

It is inevitable because it is a mystery novel, of course, and Poirot knows it. In discussion with his friend M. Bouc:

"Ah!" he sighed. "If I had but the pen of a Balzac! I would depict this scene." He waved a hand.

"It is an idea, that," said Poirot.

"Ah, you agree? It has not been done, I think? And yet -- it lends itself to romance, my friend. All around us are people, of all classes, of all nationalities, of all ages. For three days these people, these strangers to one another, are brought together. They sleep and eat under one roof, they cannot get away from each other. At the end of three days they part, they go their several ways, never perhaps to see each other again."

"And yet," said Poirot, "suppose an accident --"

"Ah, no, my friend --"

"From your point of view it would be regrettable, I agree. But nevertheless let us just for one moment suppose it. Then, perhaps, all these here are linked together -- by death."

This is even before one of the characters petitions Poirot for help, in fear of his life. It made me laugh. I could almost hear the "dunh dunh duuuunh" after it. One cannot help but suspect that the little Belgian has good reason for his morbid speculation, though, if he keeps stumbling upon corpses all over the place. He can't even get away from murder when he's on a completely closed coach in the middle of a blizzard in the hinterlands of Europe.

We have here an archetypal cozy murder mystery: the victim no one much misses, the completely fantastic and impossibly complicated crime, and the completely closed circle of suspects, nearly all of whom seem to have secrets and be hiding some dastardly motive, the incomparable detective who just happens to be in the right place at the right time. The thing is, though I think Christie tries at least a bit, none of the characters are very likable. None of them, save the victim, are terribly dislikable either. They're just there, pieces of a puzzle for Hercule Poirot to manipulate and fiddle with until they slot into their proper places. And herein lies my biggest problem with this novel.

Now, don't get me wrong. I quite enjoyed it. It's a great puzzle. I was always on the verge of feeling I might have it, only to have Poirot poke a hole in my theory (as he does with the theories of his Watsons, M. Bouc and Dr. Constantine.) There were a few things I cottoned on to, and I think if I'd been more interested in reading the thing as a logic puzzle, as I am sure many Christie readers were/are wont to do, I could have taken notes and figured things out. I think this is Christie's attraction. It's quite fiendishly ingenious, and the solution is very neat and completely preposterous. Twisted, yet it emerges in such a way as to make perfect sense. So, very fun.

Fun, but not emotionally engaging, really. Poirot just doesn't have the attraction for me of, say, Sherlock Holmes or Brother Cadfael. The Holmes comparison is apt, because both are geniuses, and kind of unknowable in their genius. It's also unfair, because I've read so much Holmes and this is the first Poirot novel I've read.

The other problem I had was I was particularly excited to have a go at Murder on the Orient Express for reasons of setting. I have a rather romantic fascination with train travel, particularly back when train travel was the luxurious way to get around. I had a hard time, here, feeling the setting. There wasn't enough description, and I am not as familiar with the sleeper coaches of international trains as I perhaps wish I was. Even the snow and cold felt perfunctory, despite playing a critical role in the story. That said, I could see reading this book in the dead of winter with the snow flying thick in the air, and feeling a little more attached to where the action is taking place. I know there are movie depictions of this story; I'm pretty tempted, in this case, to have a watch, because I think this story is well-suited to that medium.

Emotional attachment to character isn't always a prerequisite for me to enjoy a book, and this is evidence. I enjoyed myself, but I am left feeling a little bit... unsatisfied. I do understand what people see in her work. I could definitely see reading more Agatha Christie myself. Next time, I'll be a little more prepared for the cardboard characters, and I will enjoy the story for what it is: a puzzle set out very skillfully in novel form.

The Leper of Saint Giles by Ellis Peters

The Leper of Saint Giles
by Ellis Peters
MacMillan, 1981
223 pages

After a Cadfael outing I found rather lacklustre in Saint Peter's Fair, I'm pleased to report that I was back on happy footing with The Leper of Saint Giles. I read this book extremely quickly -- starting it one night and reading it halfway through, then finishing the next day -- which is certainly one way to read with a baby in the house. The other way seems to take weeks. I am not finding much room in between.

This is the fifth book in the Chronicles, and once again we have a romantic relationship at the heart of the story -- this one a forbidden, between a bride-to-be utterly beaten down by her draconian guardians and the squire of the groomsman. There is murder done, of course, but the pace in this book is very measured and we spend more time pottering around the countryside and learning about herbs and leprosy in the first bit of the book than investigating any crimes. This is fine by me; it's all very interesting, and I like spending time with Cadfael no matter how he's spending it. A little under halfway through, there is a murder -- don't read the blurbs on this book if you don't want to know who gets it in advance -- and then Cadfael, at his own pace, investigates and sees justice done.

I liked this novel not necessarily just for the investigation (which is great, if a little predictable again; at least Cadfael does a far better job of being an active sleuth and observer than in his last outing) but also for the other aspects -- the gentle ruminations on religion and human nature, the vivid supporting characters, and the wonderful setting. Once again, Peters has -- historically accurate or not, though the little reading I've done on this suggests to me that it's more accurate than not -- made life in the Middle Ages accessible and real to the reader, not just a listing of dates and grand names. It's the pacing that I like so much; it's not all deadly danger or dashing battles or unrest. These things are happening or have happened, but as is true today, life continues with its comforts and challenges; people get on. Of course, this being a mystery, sometimes people get offed, too. But it's not necessarily for some grand reason; it's more likely to be something incredibly petty than something on which rides the fate of nations.

In The Leper of Saint Giles, unsurprisingly we learn about those unfortunates who have contracted leprosy or various diseases that look quite like it, and who are legislated away from all contact with healthy people. We learn about how they were treated, some of how they were viewed, and the way they lived. Or at least the way they lived in leper hospices, tended in this case by monks from the nearby abbey. Cadfael, once again, shows himself to be both practical and compassionate towards the unfortunate around him.

I enjoyed the secondary characters this time around as much as ever: unflappable Abbot Radulfus, odious Prior Robert (who isn't given too much leeway to be too odious here), gentle Brother Mark who has taken over care of the leper hospital, having graduated from his position as Brother Cadfael's assistant, and we missed a few -- Hugh is only mentioned in passing, to my chagrin, but I'm sure he'll be back. We're also introduced to Avice of Thornbury, a new sister at a nearby cloister, of whom I'm sure we'll be seeing more. I do so like this gradual ebb and flow of characters around Cadfael at the centre. It feels organic, and very real. Some characters appear and disappear in one book; others hang around and stay connected.

Another win for Brother Cadfael. I need to remember that when I'm having trouble sticking with anything, there are a few authors I can go to for a good read, and Ellis Peters is definitely one of them. I also need to remember that it's okay to go to them, that I don't have to stick with a book I feel I should read at this point, over a book that I know I will be able to enjoy all the way through.

Earlier books in the Brother Cadfael Chronicles:
1. A Morbid Taste for Bones
2. One Corpse Too Many
3. Monk's-Hood
4. Saint Peter's Fair

Death Comes to Pemberley by PD James

Death Comes to Pemberley
by PD James
Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2011
291 pages

Funny story: none of us the wiser, my father-in-law bought this book for my mother-in-law for Christmas. She bought me a copy. I bought my mother a copy. I have since found out that two of my aunts also received copies for Christmas. I would say that PD James, judging from my admittedly small and rather biased sample size (we all love the British mysteries) has made a veritable killing on this book. Pun intended.

Not sure I'd bother to pick up another "sequel," as I quite like where Austen left things off, and there's such a glut of ... uh, forgive me, but I will call it glorified fan fiction. I'm sure some of it is good. But the reason I wanted to read this in particular is... well, PD James. Come on. I admit to a certain amount of rubbernecking here. I didn't want it to be a disaster. I really hoped she could pull it off, because I thought if anyone one could, PD James could.

So, despite it being PD James, I had tempered expectations for this book, which I think was a good thing. If I had come into it expecting brilliance all around, I would have been disappointed; PD James is not Jane Austen, after all. But I came into it expecting fun and a good mystery, and that is precisely what I got, with moments of brilliance thrown in. James can sound an awful lot like Austen at times, which is the point; I think my favourite Austen-ish moment was the following passage, referring to our, er, old friend Mr. Collins: "He began by stating that he could find no words to express his shock and abhorrence, and then proceeded to find a great number, few of them appropriate and none of them helpful."

The plot runs like so: the night before the annual ball, Lydia Wickham (not invited) shows up in hysterics: her husband had been murdered! He and his friend Captain Denny got in a fight and then there were gunshots and she's sure Wickham is dead. Naturally her abrupt arrival and dramatic disclosure disorders the normally ordered and pleasant life at Pemberley, and this story is an examination of the social and psychological consequences of murder.

It's not a standard mystery. There's no investigator, really, in that Darcy and Elizabeth are probably the closest we have, but Darcy is constrained by his ownership of Pemberley and clear connections to the accused, and Elizabeth is constrained by her status as a woman. The reader has more information than either, and I didn't figure it out. And to be honest, I wasn't terribly impressed by the thing once we discover the truth; it felt a bit hollow, which perhaps was the intent? James is pretty adamant that the murder mystery not be about the murder but about the way the survivors react, the way it changes their lives. That is precisely what we are looking at here. The mystery, and the solving of it, aren't really the focus here. The focus is on the contortions that the Darcys and those around them have to suffer thanks to the disaster of a violent death in the vicinity, and it's a bit of an examination of the forces in play that lead to the murder, all of which rings depressingly true.

James must have had quite a lot of fun playing with characters she knows so well and clearly loves, and there are sometimes little winking asides to the reader (how is it possible that she and Darcy fell in love in such a short time, Elizabeth wonders -- if it was fiction, no one would believe it) and mentions of other familiar and beloved Austen characters. I don't remember Lydia being quite so awful, but her awfulness is a logical progression from where she started in Pride and Prejudice; Georgiana has grown up, Jane is still quite herself. Elizabeth I found a little disappointing, in that the sparkling wit and acerbity I loved so much in the original seems to be lacking a bit here; necessarily James has to follow Darcy more closely than Elizabeth, because he is the one with access to the important conversations and revelations by dint of being male. She's got him down, I think, a man still battling with his pride and his prejudices, comfortably ensconced in the society he's grown up in and yet quite reasonable and relatable to a 21st century woman. What I mean to say is that James has very effectively avoided the trap of making Darcy and Elizabeth and the others modern. They're not, and because of this they feel more real.

The writing, as mentioned above, I quite enjoyed overall, though I did think there were occasions where an editor might have been a little more ruthless. There were some redundancies that felt clumsy, some rather ham-handed exposition (though this, I think, might be fairly true to the source material) and occasionally the moody foreshadowing got a bit much. However, James lays out the events of the original book with a skilled hand, such that we don't feel we're reading a blow-by-blow recap, but all the important bits are in place before we get too far along in the story. It's cleverly done. And towards the end, during the trial, I was absolutely captivated. My heart was actually racing, and we're talking about an extended scene where there's not much more going on than people talking and Darcy observing, being completely incapable of action. Writers who feel their book needs an explosion or fast chase scene or other physical action at the climax in order to be exciting should take note.

Overall, great fun. I would recommend reading the original first if you haven't already, because while this book is good it can't touch the original. But as something written carefully and lovingly by a great fan, especially one with her own authorial cred, I would definitely recommend this book to fans of Austen and fans of James.