The following two reviews are both about works of crime fiction, each part of a series, but that's where the parallels end.
One was a free ebook from Amazon's kindle shop, the other one a paperback borrowed from my book-swapping friend A (the one I was having the "Thursday Murder Club" evening with the other day). One was written by an Australian, the other by an American. They were originally published more than 100 years apart, in 1916 and 2023 respectively.
#27: The Hampstead Mystery
Arthur J. Rees
The wikipedia entry about the author doesn't say much about him as a person, but has a list of his works.
Sometimes I found the book hard going, not because it was complicated or in any way difficult to understand, but because of its sheer length and word-for-word repetition of conversations that weren't entirely necessary to bring the story forward.
Still, the case itself was interesting enough:
A well-known Judge is found shot dead in his luxurious Hampstead home under mysterious circumstances. He was supposed to be in Scotland, hunting with friends; even his trusted butler claims not to know the reason for his unexpected return. He'd been a widower for many years and lived alone, but evidence points to a lady having been present at the time of his death.
Scotland Yard detectives Chippenfield and Rolfe are baffled, but it's not only vital for them to solve the case for the obvious reasons - they are also up against famous gentleman detective Crewe, employed by the victim's daughter, and the chase for the murderer turns into a race against time between them.
Who will first disentangle the web of relationships between the victim, characters from the underworld, servants, friends and lovers, and find out who really did it?
#28: Unnatural Death
Patricia Cornwell
The 27th book in the series about medical examiner Kay Scarpetta, I found this one gripping enough to keep going although I do not intend to seek out any more of the series.
The author started the Scarpetta series in 1990, and I am pretty sure that the first one I ever read with this character at its centre was 1994's "The Body Farm". I quite liked it back then but never really followed up.
This recent story, only about 2 years old, references quite a lot from past books which I have not read; it is possible to read it as a standalone novel but probably better to stay within the series - or at least catch up with the fictional characters' biographies on wikipedia.
At the start of the book, Kay and her team are called to recover and examine the bodies of a married couple, wealthy owners of an outdoor equipment store, found dead near a site in dense woodland not accessible to the public where they had been camping for several months. Who had reason to kill them, and how did their murderer manage to get past their extensive security system, not even showing up on camera although there was only one way to get to the camp site?
What annoyed me was the almost real-time account of events; the helicopter flight out to the woods is described so that every sentence Kay and the pilot (her niece) speak is followed by what they think and feel, what in their past has lead to them thinking and feeling that way, and what they are going to say and do next.
Of course I understand that much of this was done to remind (or introduce) the reader about the characters' background, but there really was a bit too much of that in my opinion.
As with The Hampstead Mystery, the case itself was interesting enough, but the claim on the book's cover "Edge-of-the-seat, packed with twists" I can not confirm.
If any of you have been reading the Kay Scarpetta series, I'd like to know your opinion; I find that either my taste or the style of the books (or both?) has changed considerably since I first read one of the novels in the 1990s.
I haven't read either of these, but find my patience sorely tried by many of the books I read. I seriously wonder whether some authors are paid by word count, much as journalists have to provide columns by the inch. I seem to skim so much more than I used to!
ReplyDeleteI don't mind at all when a writer goes to some length in order to create an atmosphere or flesh out a character, but when it's just repetitive (and even jumpy, like I found the Scarpetta one), I don't enjoy that.
DeleteOh, back in the day, I remember reading that Kay Scarpetta series one after the other but I lost track somewhere along the way and haven't read them for ages. I may have to start at the beginning again to see if I want to pick them up again. Thanks for the reminder, Meike!
ReplyDeleteIf you do pick them up again, let me know how it goes, Ellen. I remember that I found "The Body Farm" (if that's the one I read in the 1990s) intriguing, and I believe I may have read one or two others in between, but much of what was alluded to in this book didn't sound at all familiar.
DeleteHello Meike,
ReplyDeleteI have never heard of, let alone read the first of these novels. I write I here as I am the only one of us who reads crime fiction.:):)
I have in the distant past read at least one book in the Kay Scarpetta series but they did not hold any lasting interest for me. Perhaps the plots seemed rather obvious and the characterisation somewhat laboured. Unlike Rankin , Nesbo, Connelly and others, I did not go back for more, only reading in extremis.
Hello Jane or Lance (?),
DeleteI seem to be reading a lot of crime fiction but very much enjoy a good non-fiction read in between, or a story that has nothing to do with crime. Recently, I have returned to a few books from my childhood, and there is one more waiting on the shelf for me, re-bought a couple of months ago after I found myself thinking of it quite a lot but lost the original one probably when moving here 22 years ago. (With "lost" I don't mean that a box of books was actually lost, but usually in preparing for a move, one tends to get rid of things one thinks won't be needed or wanted any longer.)
I have read some mysteries featuring Ian Rankin and enjoyed them, although they were very dark, if I remember correctly. Nesbo and Connelly don't ring a bell. I shall have a look, thank you.
A friend, great reader of mysteries, introduced me to the Kay Scarpetta series thinking I would enjoy that they are based in my home state. I despise them, but periodically read one (most recently one was left in a vacation house and I had nothing else to read). The early one was plodding and formulaic; later on they have gotten increasingly outlandish and not a single character is remotely realistic. I really hope I never read another one.
ReplyDeleteCeci
Well, Ceci, that's up to you, isn't it, whether you never read another one or not :-)
DeleteAccording to wikipedia, the character of Kay Scarpetta is based on a real person, so maybe how realistic or not a character in a book appears has more to do with our perception of it than with reality. Think of the current president of the U.S. - if we didn't know that he really exists, would we find him a plausible character in a book or film?
I was going to say that I read one Kay Scarpetta book and it didn't thrill me. But I couldn't remember the title, so I looked back at my book list -- and it was "Unnatural Death"! Even after your plot synopsis I didn't tumble that I'd read the same book. LOL!
ReplyDeleteOh, and looking at my list further I see that I read one called "Chaos," which I also do not remember. LOL
DeleteLOL indeed! Reading this book was disappointing in a way, but also helped me to decide that I can very well live without Dr. Scarpetta 😊
DeleteNever heard of the first book (that I can remember). Patricia Cornwell and also the name Scarpetta rings a bell, but if I read any book in that series, it was probably one of the early ones, and in Swedish translation. Crime series focusing on forensics was never my favourite category, though.
ReplyDeleteI did find her approach interesting and fascinating back then, but now that I have read another book from the series after a very long gap, I find that it is not for me. Fortunately, there is no shortage of very readable books out there!
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