Sunday Salon - some short mystery reviews and it's HOT here

We have finally been having our summer. After breaking the all-time record for rain in a month in July, last week it finally warmed up. We have been in the upper 20's since last weekend, and currently are hitting 30 celsius every day. This would be all right, if our house didn't heat up at the same time. Inside the house, by sunset, is 31c. So what do we do? We sit in front of fans, and watch tv or read. Luckily, the English Premiership - soccer over here, footie over in England - started yesterday, and both my husband's club (Chelsea) and mine (fabulous wonderful Arsenal) were on, and we both won! So the morning was spent happily cheering for goals.

Today, I have picked Persuasion to spend the day with. It is already too hot to think of doing anything else. I'm not complaining! If we don't get a few hot days in the summer, then I barely make it through our long cold winters. So this has warmed me up. It did get me to thinking, though. Do you read different books when it is very hot outside, from when it is colder? Is there a reason, do you think, that we have a selection of books named "Beach reads"? We don't have any called 'snow reads' or 'blizzard books'. So, do you read certain kinds of books at different times of the year, to comfort you, or nourish you?

I used to read fantasy during the winter months, and mysteries the rest of the year, with classics and anything else read randomly. Now, I'm not so sure. It seems to be more balanced out, reading both fantasy and mystery year round, although I think I still read more mysteries as a whole during the warmer time of the year. Maybe fantasy is my great escape from winter! By February I am longing for signs of green, and fantasy worlds as a whole are happier than mysteries.

Mystery Reviews
In honour of it being summer and so darned hot today - here are some mystery reviews - I've been sadly lacking in writing them up this summer!

Friend of the Devil - Peter Robinson. The latest Inspector Alan Banks mystery in paperback. I really enjoy this series, but for some reason, I kept getting the various suspects mixed up. Lately Robinson has been having multiple crimes in his books, mixing several years old ones with recent ones. It makes for dense layers and it's not something I think is completely successful in his books. I had the same problem with his previous mystery, Piece of My Heart. I had to keep flipping to sort out which decade the mystery/characters! While they end up being closely connected in the end, in Friend of the Devil I found I kept getting confused about who the victims were and why, and the perpetrators. It didn't help that the first victim had an assumed name, that there were two serial killers, and that the third crime (the recent one) wasn't connected, except in pursuit of that killer, it flushed out the killer of one of the other crimes. I normally like complex mysteries, in fact I prefer them, but this one left me flipping back and forth to sort out names and characters. Just a warning to perhaps not read this book while there is a heat wave on! Otherwise, this was very good, with Alan and Annie Cabot, who normally have a partnership, this time separated into different districts, so we get a wider range of police superintendents etc and a bigger canvas for Robinson to show how masterful he is at doing characters - he really is. Alan and Annie have private lives, and I enjoy this aspect of the mystery series too. I didn't like Annie's behaviour in this book, so I hope it shows in the next book or two that she comes to a bigger realization of what is wrong with her and why she is so defensive. There is character development and life progressions, which is a definite strength in this series, as well as excellent dialogue and among the best writing in mystery series today. The scene changes are seamless, and the crimes are horrific, and the characters are all note-perfect. This is really good writing, a very high-quality mystery series. I think the problem with the killers was they were kept vague for so long, and there were assumed identities, so unless you read the book in straight sittings, it will get confused. I also realize that I want a mystery that doesn't necessarily involve a serial killer - something that makes us look into the human heart, instead. 4/5 - possibly 4.5 if you read it in unbroken settings.

Case Histories - Kate Atkinson. The first Jackson Brodie mystery. I picked this up in the UK, having heard it being referred to on book lists and by bloggers. I wasn't steered wrong! A child's disappearance 34 years ago, a girl murdered in a lawyer's office by an unknown assailant 10 years ago, and a woman who murders her husband 22 years ago, who has finished her sentence and is picking up the pieces of her life: these are the three cases that Jackson Brodie, ex-police officer turned private investigator, is hired to solve by those left behind. This is a mystery that is about life and loss, secrets, and has moments where it is hilariously funny, heartbreaking in turns, and all the way through holds a sense of anxiety - will Olivia be found? Why does Caroline want to find her younger sister (the answer will chill you completely)? and who killed Laura? they are all solved, and in the course of the book, Brodie loses and gets his daughter back, learns French, has his house blown up, car brake fluid drained, and makes friend with a real eccentric old lady with millions of cats. This is a mystery that looks at grief, and how people pick up their lives after tragedy - or don't, and how love is always arriving unexpected, unlooked-for, and wondrous. 5/5

The Butcher of Smithfield - Susanna Gregory. I hang my head in shame, I read this in January and I hadn't reviewed it yet! This is the first Thomas Chaloner Adventure in Restoration London - yes, between this and Samuel Pepys, I am seeing London before and after the Great Fire, and having just walked some of the streets of East London at Christmas, these books bring London as it was back to life for me. In other words, I am always slightly homesick for London!
Thomas Chaloner is a spy for the Earl of Clarendon, it is 1663, and he has just returned from Portugal, so we see the changes in London as he does, with a foreigner's eyes. Someone is poisoning people with cucumbers, and Chaloner is asked to investigate the death of one of the victims, while going against the wishes of his employer to investigate the death of his dear friend Maylord, a musician, who also died from one of the cucumbers. Meanwhile the Butcher of Smithfield is controlling much of that area with his thieves/bodyguards called Hectors, and Chaloner's friend Leybourn falls in love with a woman is who is obviously after his money, there are spies within the government and without, broadsheets put out by rival presses that seek to establish who is the most trustworthy in terms of news put out, music that makes no sense, and all in all, a grand romp through Restoration London. I very much enjoyed this series and promptly picked up the second book in the series. Chaloner himself is quite attractive! and he has to walk a tightrope of pleasing the Earl, discovering who is stealing or leaking the news from the government sanctioned official broadsheet press, who the killer with cucumbers is and why, and try not to starve in the meantime - his employer refuses to pay him until he solves the murder of Newburne (the other victim of the cucumbers), who worked for L'Estrange, the official goverment censor of the news. It sounds complex, but it's not - it's fun, witty, and fast-paced, and most of all Chaloner is intelligent and caring, so he feels real grief at the loss of his friend, worry for his other friend in the clutches of Mary, and figures out the various villains as we the reader do. All in all, an excellent mystery, well-plotted, and featuring London in all its hectic glory. 5/5

Turnstone (1st book); The Take (2nd book) - Graham Hurley, DI Joe Faraday series. I had been meaning to read some of this series since the author was written up in The Guardian over a year ago. I finally ordered a copy of book one, Turnstone, and read it as soon as I got it. I am really thrilled with this series. It is every bit as good as the article said. Set in Portsmouth, an city in England I have never been to, it features Joe Faraday, a detective Inspector snowed under by paper and superiors ever conscious of their public image. He is a detective who still retains his humanity, and when Emma Maloney comes to the police center to report her dad missing, he is the only one who takes her seriously. He has an arch-enemy within the police force, Detective Paul Winter, who is his polar opposite; it's refreshing to read about conflict within the police force, instead of it being just the detective versus the criminal. There is a fine line between police and criminals, and sometimes that line is crossed, and we see Paul come close to that line and not only betray Joe, but cause the death of one of Joe's young perpetrators he has hopes of saving. Whether Joe has too much hope and Paul is right, you the reader gets to choose; but from the beginning, Joe errs on the side of human goodness. In the end, Emma is right, her dad is missing, but what happens - how the case is solved - is thrilling in a quiet, dogged, persistent way. I really enjoyed book one. It also features a sail boat race that has a terrible outcome, that as we discover more about what happened on the boat, becomes more terrible. Joe balances the horrors of criminal investigation through his son, who is deaf, and bird-watching, thus the name of the book: Turnstone is the name of the sand bird outside his home near Portsmouth's beach. Joe is a thoughtful detective, and I promptly bought book 2 and read it right after.
The Take - Not quite as good as Turnstone, I think because it doesn't have the thoughtful quality quite so paramount. That being said, it is still very good; the crime committed is one all women everywhere would instinctively understand, a gynecologist is accused of intercourse with his patients, and has disappeared. What he actually did, revealed near the end, is horrifying - deeply invasive of a woman's privacy, and I have to say that even though he was only in a characer in a book, I was glad at what happened to the gynecologist! That's how good the writing and characterization is in this series. It may be that this book isn't quite so melancholic as the first one. We also see the true nature of Paul Winter when faced with the loss of someone dear to him. And again, at every turn, he tries to thwart Joe Faraday, who he can't forgive for thwarting his own plans for promotion. Definitely a must-read, and a series for mystery fans. I need to find Book 3 soon!
Turnstone: 5/5. The Take: 4.5/5

Last but not least, the mystery many of you have been waiting for me to review:

In the Woods, by Tana French. Firstly, this is excellent writing and characterization. It is superb. From the prologue, to the opening paragraphs of Chapter one, which I remembered all through the book :"I crave truth. And I lie." to the final revelation of who did it (in the crime investigated) and how horrifyingly evil and manipulative he/she is, this book is almost unputdownable.

It is agonising to read this book, because the central character can't remember what happened twenty years ago in the woods, when his two friends disappeared and he was found shaking near a tree. He was never able to tell what happened. Years later, he has slightly changed his name, and is now a detective, and the book opens with him being assigned to investigate a murder close to the very site where he was discovered as a child. He had not been back since the events as a child, his family had moved away, so no one recognizes him, and he is seeing the area again through adult eyes for the first time. What I found most disturbing was that he doesn't tell his supervisor right away who he is, and when he is found out, what happens. This made me pull away from the story for a bit, until it is resolved, thankfully!

There is a current trend it seems in mysteries to conduct investigations into old serial killer crimes or child disappearances, with current investigations that eventually link up. I can't decide if this is a good trend or not. I do wonder if we - the white world, from whom many of these types of crime books are coming - are working through the enormous loss of all the missing children and teens that has been prevalent in our culture for the past 30 years. Do you remember the milk cartons and posters with the pictures of missing children on them? I do. I think this is one way we are trying to come to terms with, to understand why, and what happened. I think I am interested in how crimes affect those left behind. In the Woods shows this in many ways. Rob Ryan's family, the families of the original two children, the current victim's family: some of the many the ways that the disappearances and murder affects the ones left behind, are shown. It was particularly affecting about the two missing children, and how time is different for the parents. As in Case Histories, sometimes the ones left behind can move on, sometimes they can't, but always, they are altered.

I am of two minds about the main character - I know I ended up not trusting him at all, even though I see how whatever happened that day long ago has affected him (something even he can't see yet). I still think one possibility is he might have killed his friends, and yet I don't want him to have, such is the skill of French in showing Ryan's character and perhaps-faulty memory. This is a very good mystery, deserving of all the acclaim it has received. I really liked Cassie, the detective Ryan is paired with, and am happy to see she is the main character in the next book out by French, The Likeness. I don't have it yet, but I will be getting it shortly!

All in all, another excellent mystery. 4.7/5

Have you read any of these books? Please let me know, and I'll link to them.

Rambling end-notes:
I'm off to read Persuasion now. It's too hot to do housework, hurray!! I do also admit, in this slightly rambling Sunday Salon (it is really hot now, almost 40 c with the humidity), that I am beginning to look ahead to RIP 3 (or is it 4?) which should start soon. I already have some books lined up: I was thinking of Duma Key by Stephen King, and Drood by Dan Simmons. Have you started planning for Carl's challenge? Are you in the mood for some ghost stories soon, too?

Final First Canadian Book Challenge review.....

It has ended, the First Canadian Book Challenge, eh? I came to it late, having joined the Blogging world only last October. The Canadian Book Challenge was the very first challenge I joined. And I challenged myself, and I enjoyed it, making my inner literary bookworm glad that I was finally reading something other than fantasy in Canadian literature, even if it was not Atwood or Davies. My Cool Inner Literary Bookworm would prefer that I read all the good Canlit that's out there....she is ashamed that I hate Mordecai Richler and had to read inumerable Canadian books already in high school and for my Canadian literature university course, so I feel like it's a chore to pick up another, no matter the good reviews it's getting......I do like Hugh MacLennan, and I like a lot of Canadian poetry, so I'm not totally in my CILB's bad books!

Anyway, for this challenge I mostly picked books off my shelves. And I read 10 out of 13, which considering I joined in October, is better than a book a month for this challenge! So while I am disappointed I didn't complete it, I am proud of what I did read.


My final book, Piece of My Heart by Peter Robinson, I finished late on June 30. I have read the Inspector Alan Banks mysteries from almost the time they began to be published. It's a strange feeling to read these mysteries, because Peter Robinson sets his mysteries in Yorkshire, where he was born! He lives in Toronto now. So I'm reading a Canadian book set in another country, written in that voice - I love the Yorkshire accent, having lived in York, and I'm familiar with the landscape and people. So this raises a question that was raised years ago in my Canadian Literature class in university: what makes a book Canadian? Is an author, newly emigrated from another country, and setting their book back in that country, a Canadian writer? How? This is a question that raised voices, temperatures, and words in my class. So I pose it now, because I think it is at the heart of the dilemma of Canadian literature, and not one addressed often: when does a writer/book become Canadian? I know, that when I write, my most natural setting is the Canadian landscape, and that our landscape dominates most books written by people who have been in Canada long enough. We can't get away from the sense of land, of trees (except maybe Toronto!), of water, of the earth - it fills our senses and we are intimately connected with the moods of the land and seasons. We have to be, to survive here.

It's not a question that is easy to ask or answer. It is one that has puzzled me since my professor raised it way back in 1990: so I was wondering if, for the second Canadian Book Challenge, it was a question we could think about as we read through our selections. Even Charles de Lint, who is my pick for this second Challenge (I'm reading 13 of his books - see sidebar for the selections), was born in The Netherlands. Yet, his voice is Canadian, his settings Canadian, in tone, mood, how he relates to the environment - trees, the earth, the world of faery - it is Canadian in tone, not American, not Dutch (that I am aware of, and having a Dutch stepfather, I am somewhat aware of Dutch sensibilities and perceptions!). What makes a book Canadian, and when does an emigrated author become Canadian in his writing? which I think means, when does a writer absorb his settings enough to write about them? Because this question would do for any country with a high immigrant population, or for expats writing. This is not meant in any way to say that a newcomer to Canada isn't a Canadian writing; what I am interested in is exploring when Canada gets into the bloodstream, the memory, the senses, when Canada imposes itself on the person.

I know from my year in the UK, that I have taken in something of the York spirit, the English sensibility, because I lived there. I do not think could write a book from the English perspective yet; I could write one from a foreigner living in England, though. And indeed I will, one day! Because I love England, and I carry some of that landscape with me now.

So when I read Peter Robinson, or any other author setting their books in Yorkshire - the tv versions of Dalziel and Pascoe are also set in Yorkshire, which raises homesickness in myself and my husband when we watch them! - I can see the landscape, the rhythm of the words, and I know if it's accurate or not. Peter Robinson is, and so is Piece of My Heart.

Piece of my Heart is the most recent of the Inspector Alan Banks mysteries in paperback. It is set in the same place - Yorkshire - and in two different time periods, the late 60's - 1969 and current day - 2005. The murder involves the music scene of the 60's, a fictional band named the Mad Hatters, and the murder of a journalist in 2005 who is writing an article about the Mad Hatters, who still exist as a band in current day. I found the switching back and forth a bit hard to get used to, because the 1969 timeline introduced all new characters, as well as the regular detective squad - Detective Annie Cabot and others of Alan Bank's squad, who investigate the current murder. Once I got used to who was investigating what, and realized there was a link between the two, it got much easier and I was able to relax and enjoy the mystery. I guessed wrong on the murderer, which I do enjoy almost as much as being right! - and I love the interplay between Annie and Alan. They have a new Superintendent which brings new elements - the former one had given Banks leeway to pursue investigations without too much detail, and the new one is ambitious, with surprises for Banks and Cabot and the rest of the squad.

The mystery itself is about the murder of a girl at a music festival in 1969, and then the modern-day murder of the journalist. Both have red herrings, lots of clues, and are linked together. I ended up enjoying how the timelines were brought together, and finding out what happened to the detectives on the original case. The investigations were satisfying and as always, the Yorkshire elements of the moors, and the weather, affected the tone - the current day part is set in autumn, a time of grey skies, wind and rain.

This is not the very best of the Banks mysteries - his award-winning Strange Affair is one of the very best - but it is solid and good, and better than many continuing mystery series being published.

I took a break while composing this post, and I began wondering about authors like, Rohinton Mistry (A Fine Balance), Michael Oondatje (The English Patient), Nalo Hopkinson, all of whom are emigrants and all of whom have won major awards as Canadian writers. Most of their books are set away from Canada, or have characters going from Canada back to their native land; and I think this shows their minds absorbing the new land with memories of the old. Compare them with Margaret Atwood, Robertson Davies, L.M. Montgomery, Alice Munro, Douglas Copeland, and, our Aboriginal authors: Pauline Campbell, Thomas King, Jeannette Armstrong, Thomson Highway; or Pierre Berton, Farley Mowat, William Gibson: all big names in Canadian fiction, all writing from different perspectives and backgrounds. All are ours, new writers and old. We have a lot to celebrate in our Canadian fiction. And I think it is all Canadian, from the time someone enters our country, to people born here, to people who have always been here.

Myself, from my own experience, I think once someone has decided to live here, they begin to become Canadian, and this is reflected in their writing. I think people also carry with them memories of the land they were born in, and this is also in their writing. Definitely reading a wide range of Canadian fiction will give you a good understanding of the make-up of the Canadian population now, and understanding of some of the influences in our culture.

So, just some reflections as I close on the first Canadian Book Challenge. For anyone who is now curious about the 2nd Canadian Book Challenge, eh? go here and join us!!

Oh, and I've read nearly everything by Farley Mowat except his war memoirs, and I love Margaret Laurence's The Diviners. But since I read mostly fantasy and mysteries, it has only been in the past 20 years that we have had an explosion of writing - of books - in these fields. I know count Canadian writers Tanya Huff, Guy Gavriel Kay, Charles de Lint, Louise Penny, Karen Irving, L.R. Wright, among my favourite of writers, period. And my Inner Literary Bookworm, while sniffing at the genre titles, is nodding her head. She's going to try to slip me some Douglas Copeland soon, I know, as well as Rohinton Mistry and Michael Oondatje (I love The English Patient as a movie, and everyone says the book is different, so I didn't want to lose what I loved about the movie.....)......and Margaret Atwood.