It was a pretty bumper list of books last month thanks to the holiday,
An Inkling of Death by Anna Beer*
This is the second mystery featuring academic Eve Brook – I read the first one this month as well, but this came out last week. This time Eve is hunting for Tolkien references in the papers of a minor member of the Inklings. Spending New Year at a house in the country should be a break from the heavy material that she’s found in the documents, but the atmosphere at the party is not good and that’s before a body is found. Soon she’s trying to figure out what happened and whether it’s related to her work. The premise of this is good, but I found the start where you’re thrown in to the house party without the context of the case a bit confusing, and sort of wished that it had started at the beginning of the story rather than jumping back two months later after the murder, but I understood why it had been done that way to get to the murder quicker. I find Eve quite a tricky character to get on board with – she’s clearly intelligent when it comes to her work but her emotional intelligence and the way she deals with relationships feels much more like a teenager than a woman with a grown up child of her own. But I thought the mystery plot was clever – the 1930s Oxford politics and the backdrop of the attitudes towards fascism among academics at the time made for a clever set up.
Puzzles of the Parish ed. Martin Edwards
This is another of the BLCC’s collections of mystery short stories built around a theme. This time the linking thread is ecclesiastical – they feature vicars, churches and even a cardinal scheming for the papacy. There are some authors you will recognise in here – like G K Chesterton, Ellis Peters and Edmund Crispin as well as others you may not. And as ever with these collections it is a little patchy – I really liked some of the stories but others left me cold. But if you’re looking for some mystery short stories – or to try and add some more Golden Age authors into your reading diet this isn’t a bad way of spending a few hours if you are in Kindle Unlimited – or Kindle+ as they appear to be in the process of rechristening it.
The Gentleman’s Book of Vices by Jess Everlee*
It’s London in the 1880s, and Charlie is about to marry a woman he can’t love. But before he does, he’s determined to meet his favourite author from his erotica collection. As far as everyone knows, Miles is a shopkeeper – but the shop is actually being kept afloat by his (much more successful) career as an erotica writer. When Charlie turns up in his shop, Miles suspects blackmail – not that Charlie is a fan. Soon they’re having an affair – but there are things in their lives which will need to be overcome. I struggled with this one on a number of fronts. The plot is muddled and the pacing is a bit all over the place. But I think the thing that’s going to bamboozle readers the most is a mismatch of expectations and reality: One of the main characters is a writer of erotica, but most of the sex scenes are off page/closed door and I don’t think that’s what people are going to be expecting, especially with pacing and plot as patchy as they are. Never mind.
And that’s your lot for this month, something of a mixed bag I will admit, but you can’t always like everything, and a lot of the stuff that I did like a lot I’ve either already written about – or have plans for in the weeks ahead! In case you need a reminder, the Books of the Week in October were: Apparently Sir Cameron Needs to Die, The Seventh Sinner, The Shadows of Kensington Gore and The Final Problem and the other Recommendsdays were Halloween and South Korea novels.
Happy Humpday!
