Re-reading Classic Mysteries

Having wallowed through the darkest winter months reading light, fluffy, predictable cozy mysteries, I decided to up my game just a bit. The very addictive formula for the cozies I had been reading goes like this:
Amateur woman detective who is very nosy and...
Owns a small business...
Or is retired...
And involved or married to a policeman,
Has lots of friends who drop by her cottage or business (herbs, tea, knitting, antiques...)
In her small town or village or small part of a larger city (town within a town)
Somehow gets involved in a murder and decides to solve it herself because:
She is a suspect, or,
Her friend is a suspect and
She doesn't think the police are taking the investigation seriously.
So she annoys the police by interfering and
Puts herself in danger at the end of the book
And stumbles onto a solution and figures out whodunnit by almost getting murdered herself.
These amateur sleuths are not exactly Miss Marple who calmly observes and knows who did it almost from the beginning. These amateurs just stumble around like the unsuspecting teens in the horror films who always go down to the basement in the middle of the night unarmed to investigate the strange noise; we know how that turns out.

This fluffy genre of cozy mysteries is very popular, but after a while I felt like I had dined on dessert one time too many, so I decided to re-read the classic mysteries of the past that these new ones are descended from. What better mystery writer than Dame Agatha Christie herself? I just re-read 'The Murder of Roger Ackroyd' and even though I remembered the plot twist at the end when the murderer is revealed, I enjoyed this even more the second time around. The clues (or 'clews' as it is spelled in the book) are all reported along the way for observant readers; the characters are introduced in a list at the beginning of the book; a diagram of the scene of the crime is included. The whole exposition of the crime moves along at a nice pace with no extraneous dialogue, descriptions or digressions. Hercule Poirot is a professional detective, not an amateur, and is always several steps ahead of the reader in his observations and conclusions about the crime. M. Poirot never blindly wanders around aimlessly looking for clues. The amateur sleuths may be more easy to relate to for many readers than Poirot or Miss Marple, but the reader can aspire to figure out the mystery and compete with the keen intelligence of Christie's detectives.

Related websites:
Cozy Mystery List
Cozy Mysteries Unlimited
Mystery Cozy
Agatha Christie
'The Top Ten Agatha Christie mysteries' article in the Guardian

In a Dry Season

If you like the PBS television show 'DCI Banks,' read the series it is based on by Peter Robinson. 'In a Dry Season' is the tenth in the series and the first I've read. Alan Banks has been relegated to boring desk jobs for insubordination and is assigned to a cold case when a skeleton is found in an abandoned village which is revealed when the summer drought dries up the reservoir that had covered the town for fifty years. The book alternates between the story of the village during WWII and the current investigation into what appears to have been an unreported murder there. This book is a great depiction of the deprivations and tragedies of WWII in the U.K., interwoven with a believable present-day police procedural. The suspense lasts until the last chapter.
Recommended for fans of Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie series and Elizabeth George's Inspector Lynley series.

The Orphan Master's Son

The library's Tuesday evening book group will discuss Adam Johnson's much lauded and Pulitzer Prize-winning 'The Orphan Master's Son' tonight at 7:30 in the reading room.

'Here's a chance to visit sealed-off North Korea. Johnson's protagonist is an orphan who starts out as a tunnel soldier and rises through the military ranks until he's set to challenge Kim Jong-Il himself. Along the way, we encounter what one character calls "the greatest North Korean love story ever told." Evidently a blend of personal story and political revelation, with thriller overtones thrown in for fun, this work is being positioned as a breakout for Johnson.' - from the publisher's blurb on our catalog.

The question is, can readers stomach visiting North Korea which is depicted as soul-suckingly depressing, deprived and and dehumanizing? Some readers will dive right in and follow this picaresque tale of Pak Jun Do whose adventures make Candide's look like a walk in the park. Other readers, more squeamish ones, may find this story where hard luck follows bad luck with very little breathing room for optimism, hard going.



New York Times review 
in which reviewer Michiko Kakutani rightly calls the book's tone 'harrowing,' and goes on to say that after years of research and travel to North Korea, Mr. Johnson was able to,
'transform that research into an operatic if somewhat long-winded tale that is at once satiric and melancholy, blackly comic and sadly elegiac.'

The Pulitzer Prizes website

The Miami Herald interview with Adam Johnson
in which the author acknowledges that his fictional story cannot be entirely truthful because of the blackout of information coming from North Korea, but he based his book on stories from defectors, extensive research and a visit to the country.

Flavia de Luce series: where is it going?

The Dead in their Vaulted Arches, the 6th in Alan Bradley's 'Flavia de Luce' series seems to be a bridge between the series as it was and whatever it will become from now on. Flavia is an almost 12 year old girl living in a small village in England after WWII (1951 in this book). She lives in a crumbling old estate with her emotionally distant father, two older sisters who dislike her and a small household staff. She loves chemistry and solving crimes. In this book, the mystery of what happened to her mother, missing for ten years, is solved. Harriet de Luce's body is discovered in the Himalayas and shipped home to her family. The mysteries that remain unsolved are: what was Flavia's mother really doing in the Himalayas? Why is the family involved in British intelligence work and in what way? At the end, Flavia's father tells her that she will be sent to boarding school in Canada, so in addition to a change of venue, the series seems to be taking a turn toward Flavia as international spy in training, but we will have to wait for the next installment to find some answers and to find out if the series improves once it makes some major changes. I enjoyed the earlier books in this series and hopes it regains its footing now that this book has sent it into a new direction as Flavia matures.

Reviews of the Flavia de Luce series and similar mysteries on this blog can be found here.http://bhplnjbookgroup.blogspot.com/search?q=flavia

Interview with author Alan Bradley

Tuesday Library Book Group 2013

The Second Tuesday of the Month evening book group read the following titles in 2013. Library blog reviews are linked to titles when available.


January – Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
February  – How it all Began by Penelope Lively   
March  – The Light of Day by Graham Swift
April  – Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
May  – Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
June – Kitchen House by Kathleen Grisson
July – The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
*No meeting in August
September  – Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
October  – Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi
November – The Aviator’s Wife by Melanie Benjamin and Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
December  – Defending Jacob by William Landay

Our first book, translated from the French, 'Elegance of the Hedgehog' was not generally liked by the group. I think the criticism was that it was a bit preachy and wordy. Rather than really developing the characters or plot, the characters pontificated about philosophy at length. Is it possible that an American audience would prefer to be shown, not told?

'The Night Circus' divided the group firmly into those who loved it and came dressed in black and white with touches of red  (fans are called 'reveurs') and those of us who just don't like fantasy and wished the plot or characters were a little more developed. As Ellen noted in her review, the descriptions of the circus are beautiful and imaginative, but for some readers, that's just not enough to carry the book.


Most of the reading group members seemed to like 'The Language of Flowers' and found it easy to read and to finish, which is not always the case with reading group books.

'Gone Girl', a huge bestseller and book club pick across the country, usually provokes strong reactions in readers. I remember hearing patrons discussing it heatedly at the Circulation Desk. Some readers so dislike the characters, that they choose not to finish the book . Most of our book group members found 'Gone Girl' engrossing even though none of the principal characters is at all sympathetic and the plot beggars belief at times.

The discussion of 'Defending Jacob' was snowed out twice, so we will discuss that at our January meeting.

Leave a comment with your thoughts about these books or email me at reference@bhplnj.org and I will post your comment for you.