Last few Hills
Feb. 6th, 2007 09:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cyphomandra Death's Jest Book. I liked this one a lot – it’s long, and it builds up slowly, but it has one of those sweetly engineered plots where, at the end, you can hear the gears clicking into place, and taking you somewhere completely right and (almost) totally unexpected. Experimenting with intercut narratives again – Franny Root’s letters, this time – and with regard to Franny it’s fascinating to see Pascoe obsessed, knowing he’s crossing over the line but unable to stop himself. It’s also another Wield book (once again, entangled with a rent-boy), and Hat is actually tolerable. Very good.
Good Morning, Midnight. A book which finally answered my questions about the whereabouts of a character from Recalled to Life, although given the answer I regret ever thinking about it. A man kills himself, making his suicide deliberately look like his father’s supposed suicide, ten years earlier, right down to the evidence suggesting it may in fact have been murder. It’s a Dalziel book more, this one, a bit like Exit Lines in that his probity is questioned, and Pascoe has to investigate both for and against him, in a way. It’s well-done and I liked it, but the characters didn’t grab me as much as the last one, and I’m iffy about massive global conspiracies seeping in.
I said only two more Hills and then I felt the early twinges of withdrawal, so I read another Joe Sixsmith. He’s a short, balding, black PI in Luton, and he has a great cat. (Whitey. Drinks like a fish and has firm opinions on food and socialising). Entertaining and funny – not as complex as the Dalziel and Pascoe books have become, but there’s only a handful so far.
I like detective stories for many reasons, but not the least of them is that a good detective story must of necessity have a good plot, and I'm very fond of plot. My definition of a good plot includes good characters, and respect for how the characters would act, and, taking this all together, a good detective story is most of the way towards being what I consider a good book. Having said this I've read a lot of detective stories I haven't liked, where the plot grinds down the characters and everyone is forced to act in a most unlikely fashion (a particularly scarring Ngaio Marsh involving a man in a suit of armour sliding backwards down the bannisters to set up a perfect murder/alibi springs to mind), but if I can clutch Dorothy Sayers, Josephine Tey and, now, Reginald Hill, to my breast in a defensive fashion I'll be perfectly happy.
Good Morning, Midnight. A book which finally answered my questions about the whereabouts of a character from Recalled to Life, although given the answer I regret ever thinking about it. A man kills himself, making his suicide deliberately look like his father’s supposed suicide, ten years earlier, right down to the evidence suggesting it may in fact have been murder. It’s a Dalziel book more, this one, a bit like Exit Lines in that his probity is questioned, and Pascoe has to investigate both for and against him, in a way. It’s well-done and I liked it, but the characters didn’t grab me as much as the last one, and I’m iffy about massive global conspiracies seeping in.
I said only two more Hills and then I felt the early twinges of withdrawal, so I read another Joe Sixsmith. He’s a short, balding, black PI in Luton, and he has a great cat. (Whitey. Drinks like a fish and has firm opinions on food and socialising). Entertaining and funny – not as complex as the Dalziel and Pascoe books have become, but there’s only a handful so far.
I like detective stories for many reasons, but not the least of them is that a good detective story must of necessity have a good plot, and I'm very fond of plot. My definition of a good plot includes good characters, and respect for how the characters would act, and, taking this all together, a good detective story is most of the way towards being what I consider a good book. Having said this I've read a lot of detective stories I haven't liked, where the plot grinds down the characters and everyone is forced to act in a most unlikely fashion (a particularly scarring Ngaio Marsh involving a man in a suit of armour sliding backwards down the bannisters to set up a perfect murder/alibi springs to mind), but if I can clutch Dorothy Sayers, Josephine Tey and, now, Reginald Hill, to my breast in a defensive fashion I'll be perfectly happy.
