Murder in Mumbai

I am always excited to find mystery series set in non-western places.  I am not sure how I first heard about Vaseem Khan's series set in modern-day Mumbai, but I'm glad that I came across it.  The first book is called The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra.  Inspector Chopra is a newly retired detective from the Mumbai police department.  His unexpected inheritance is a baby elephant, fittingly named Ganesha (Ganesha being the name of a very popular Hindu god with an elephant head.)

On Inspector Chopra's last day of work before retiring, a teenager's body is discovered.  The boy was quite poor, and his family doesn't believe the police department will do anything to help them.  Inspector Chopra takes this personally.  Mumbai may be a city of tens of millions, but murder must be stopped no matter what.  Not quite ready to retire and not very trusting of the inspector who has taken his place, Chopra begins to investigate himself.

There are a lot of good points about this book that I think bode well for the series.  First, contemporary Mumbai is very much a character in this book, and a heavily flawed character, at that.  We see why the Inspector fell so in love with the city, why he's so frustrated with it now, and why it can be so overwhelming to so many people.  The corruption at all levels of the Indian government are pretty obvious here, as is the extreme poverty that affects so many people.  But there is also the delicious food, the many enterprising ways people make the city and their lives work, the cultures that have melded and stood for so many centuries.  Second, the Inspector and his wife are getting older in life but have no children, which is quite rare in India.  I look forward to seeing how Khan approaches this in future.  Like many people over the past few generations, Chopra and his wife were from a more rural area and moved to Mumbai, so we see their perspective from both a more traditional upbringing and a very urban perspective.  I really appreciated the way Khan brought all of this to life.  Also, the adorable baby elephant.

But there were things about this book that also were not quite so up to par.  The mystery was solved in a bit of a clunky manner, clues turning up sometimes without any real work.  While I liked Chopra and his wife, Archana (nicknamed Poppy), their relationship and the strange plot twist that came into the book around them was pretty bizarre and hard to believe.  The writing just felt a bit amateur and rough around the edges.  But I think it's worth trying the second book, especially if baby Ganesha has more of a role.

A darker, more ominous Paris

I was very excited to read Aliette de Bodard's The House of Shattered Wings.  I enjoyed de Bodard's short stories; she writes science fiction with a feminist, Vietnamese perspective that I love.  I was excited to see what she would do with a fantasy novel set in Paris some time after the end of an alternate version of World War I.

The House of Shattered Wings focuses mostly on the inhabitants of House Silverspires, a group of fallen angels (Fallen) and humans (Mortals) that live and work together.  The house's power comes from its founder, Morningstar (Lucifer), who set great wards and shields over it before he disappeared 20 years ago.  Now, House Silverspires is under attack by an unknown force, and the other houses in Paris are more than willing to take advantage of any weakness.

This novel is both a fantasy and a mystery; the characters spend much of the time trying to understand what is threatening Silverspires, even as they wield magic and deal with the politics that are mainstays of any fantasy novel.  I like this combination a lot as it forces readers and characters to focus on motivations and there's less about the procedure and run of events.

There is a lot going on here - possibly too much for me.  I liked that de Bodard just dropped us into her world and gave us very few footholds to understand the background or history of her setting.  She clearly knows much more about the Paris she created than she chooses to share with readers.  I love when authors do that!  But this world was, for whatever reason, very complicated for me, and I often became confused.  For example, there are both Fallen and Mortals in the book, but I could not really keep track of which characters were Fallen and which were not.  And then it seemed like humans could wield magic, too, so I was confused by that, since at other times, I thought it seemed like humans had no intrinsic magic of their own.  And there were so many flashbacks, and I didn't know how far back the flashbacks were taking me.  Twenty years?  Sixty years?  300 years?  It depended on the character, and I became quite muddled.

Another thing that stood out to me in this book was the way de Bodard brought in colonialism.  One of the main characters, Phillippe, is Vietnamese and has a magic unlike anyone else in the story.  He is immediately treated with suspicion, as an outsider, and he in turn does not feel bound by the laws and loyalties other characters have.  He was brought to Paris to fight in a war he did not believe in, dragged from his home and given very little in return for the sacrifice.  He makes so many comments about colonialism throughout the book, how even very wonderful and kind people benefit from the system and keep it propped up, so that one side can continue to gain more than the other.  This is mirrored in the relationship that Fallen and Mortals have.  Fallen don't seem to care much at all about humans; they view them mostly as expendable.

The problem I had with Phillippe, and with all the characters, really, was that I didn't feel like I knew any of them.  It's hard to justify that statement, since the book is 400 pages long.  How could I spend so much time with these people and not know them at all?  And honestly, I don't know.  They interacted but never trusted each other, so it was hard to see a lot of connection between anyone.  They all had very different back stories, and I didn't learn any of those very well, so that made it difficult.  And none of them really liked each other, so we rarely saw anyone with their guards down or willing to say anything honest or true to each other.  It was hard to break through.

There are a few shorter prequels to this book that I think I will check out in the hopes of understanding the characters and the setting a little better.  The House of Shattered Wings is the first book in a series, though it can stand alone pretty well, for the most part (in that the main mystery is solved, though there are quite a few loose ends).  I definitely plan to continue with the series; I hope at some point the plot will take us to Vietnam!  But there's a long wait before the next book comes out, and this was a complicated story, so just something to keep in mind.

The case of the missing foot

I thoroughly enjoy mystery novels and think many of them are excellently written.  I don't generally like to commit to series, but I do enjoy a good mystery series, mostly because I like learning more about characters I love and seeing them grow.  I especially enjoy when authors tackle real issues in their novels, using their characters and the mysteries they confront to provide perspective on the world as it is now.  I think this is why there is often overlap between SFF and mystery fans - the best authors do this really well in both genres.

One author who excels at putting heart and soul (and a lot of humor) into fantasy and mystery is JK Rowling.  Her third book in the Cormoran Strike mystery series, Career of Evil, is a truly excellent book.  It clocks it at about 500 pages; I was at the tail end of a very slow reading year, and yet I managed to plow through the book in only a few days.  I even stayed up quite late one weeknight to finish it, which is rare for me.

What made this book so good?  I mean, yes, there's the whole serial-killer-who-seems-to-have-a-personal-vendetta-against-Strike plot, and that is very compelling to read.  But the mystery portion of a mystery novel is, strangely, never the reason I fall in love with the story.  I spend zero time trying to figure out whodunnit while I'm reading the story (possibly because I almost always skip ahead to the end before I finish the second chapter, but even then, I don't really look for clues while reading the rest of the book).

Really, what made this book for me is that Rowling/Galbraith finally delivered on the Robin Ellacott part of the story.  For the first two books in the series, I really loved Robin as a character - she is strong, kind, loyal and brave - but I hated her fiancee.  I still hate her fiancee, but I understand better now why Robin stayed with him.  We learn much more about Robin in this outing, spend much more time in her head.  I think Robin is where the link to the Harry Potter stories is the strongest in this series (if you happen to be looking for a link).  She is exactly the sort of person Hermione Granger would grow up to be.  And, as you may know, Hermione didn't have the best taste in men, either.

Another plus in this novel's column is that Strike's ex-girlfriend Charlotte gets hardly any mention.  Charlotte was the worst, and I bid her good riddance.  I hope she doesn't return, though that is probably asking too much.  Why both main characters have so much melodrama in their romantic relationships is beyond me.  Much as we learned about Robin in this book, we also learned quite a bit about Cormoran Strike's formative years, and I was a glutton for the information.  Career of Evil was like birthday cake for me.  While I think Strike is coming out to be more of a loner and isolationist than I would have liked, he's still a very interesting person to spend 500 pages with.  I just wish he didn't so easily dispose of women.

Of course, when you have a man and a woman with melodramatic romances in their lives, it's inevitable that there would be sexual tension between them.  And there is, certainly, between Robin and Strike.  It's been building up for three books now, and I'm not sure where it's going or what will happen.  But I assume Rowling/Galbraith knows, and I trust her completely.

The Cormoran Strike (I admit it irks me that the series is named only after Strike and does not mention Robin at all) mystery series absolutely does not fall into the "cozy" subgenre.  They are bloody, dark, and very complicated stories.  But they're also very well-written, and the series improves with each book, so I highly recommend checking them out if you have any interest.  Especially for Robin - it's very difficult not to love her.

Review-itas: Playing Catch-Up

I'm back from vacation and back to blogging!  I honestly didn't read a ton while I was away, but I am excited to share my thoughts on some books with you!  In an effort to get back into reviewing, but not spend a ton of time reviewing books I read months ago or about which I don't have much to say, here are some Twitter-inspired reviews (in that, Twitter inspired me to be succinct, but it's very difficult to work in 140 characters, people):

Third in a Ghanaian mystery series featuring Inspector Darko Dawson (I enjoyed the first but have not read the second, since I thought this was it), Murder at Cape Three Points tackles the environmental and economic impact of foreign oil interests on Ghana.  I appreciated learning more about this precarious balance (though maybe it's not really in balance), especially as I didn't really know there was oil drilling in Ghana.  Quartey shows the positives (big new resorts giving an economic boost to the region!) and negative (some serious conflicts of interest).  But Inspector Dawson is still hard to know, and his family is once again mostly in the background.  I would prefer more development on that front as the mystery series continues; why create so many great characters and then not give them any air time?  If Dawson's fantastic wife Christine doesn't get some spotlight in the next book, I won't be continuing on with this series.

Moving from Ghana to Zimbabwe, NoViolet Bulawayo's We Need New Names had been on my library "For Later" shelf for quite a while before the cover and the story finally captured my attention enough to get it on audiobook.  I was completely engaged at the beginning; I loved Darling's voice and the way Bulawayo shared so much about Zimbabwe by using a child narrator.  She packed a lot of information and emotion into the story; for a first novel, this is really impressive.

In the second half, Darling moves to the US.  Again, I think the author did amazing work bringing everything to life:  the difficulty of being an immigrant, the expectations of your family back home vs reality, the things that set you apart and help you fit in.  It all rang very true.

That said, I've read a lot of immigration stories in my life, and the structure of this one was pretty much the same as all the rest of them.  The writing is beautiful and evocative, but I don't think Bulawayo did much to break down any tropes.  That said, I am pretty excited about whatever she writes next.

I've been eagerly anticipating the second book in the Ms. Marvel comic series.  Generation Why doesn't disappoint.  We see Kamala further develop and understand her superpowers, and she gets more involved in the overall Marvel universe of characters by finding a pretty awesome mentor.  Savvy move by Marvel because now I feel like I should go and read more of the comics in the Marvel universe so I understand all these connections and backstories.  BUT WHERE TO START?!

I thought this book got a little preachy about how awesome the Millennial/Centennial generation is (though this didn't really surprise me, as G. Willow Wilson has a tendency to be preachy in her other books, too), but I could see that really appealing to teens, and hey, I believe in empowerment.  Such a fun series, populated with great characters I can't wait to get to know better.

I was pretty pumped to hear that Thomas King had a new book out, and snatched it up from the library as soon as I could.  The Truth About Stories is an essay collection about story-telling and how the stories we choose to tell and believe can shape our lives and perceptions.  There are many, many stories written about Native Americans.  Native Americans, for the most part, are only now starting to add their voices so that their stories can be heard, too.

I really enjoyed these essays.  King talks about oral storytelling vs written storytelling.  A lot of American cultures thrived on oral storytelling so that they could control the story.  But European culture focuses on written storytelling, and now they've come to dominate so many narratives that they don't really have a right to.  He talks about how most Native American and First Nation authors refuse to write history; they write contemporary literature.  This is something I've definitely noticed myself, and I was interested in his explanation - basically, that they don't want to touch the stereotype that exists in people's minds about Native Americans from long ago.  They want to assert their right to the present, and show that they have a place now.

A very thought-provoking and well-written read.  Also very short and full of reading suggestions, if you want them!

Wilkie Collins and the big, bright diamond

I avoided reading The Moonstone for several years because of the novel's premise.  I was pretty sure that I would find a Victorian era novel about a representative of the British empire stealing a priceless Indian diamond and the inevitable "Hindoo" curse that followed him and his extended family to be supremely offensive to my sensibilities.  But I decided to give it a shot because people seriously love this book, it's been on my shelf for a long time, I had a feeling it would be pretty amazing as an audiobook, and winter is a good time to settle down with a mystery novel.

The Moonstone centers on a diamond stolen from a temple in India.  It ends up in England and Rachel Verinder receives it as an 18th birthday present, wowing everyone with its size and glitter and value.  She (stupidly) decides not to lock it up at night and then everyone is shocked when the diamond is no longer there in the morning.  Suspicion immediately falls on three Indian men who have been hanging about the village, but things are not quite as clear as they seem.

And I must say that I was pleasantly surprised with this book!  (Caveats to follow shortly.)  I really enjoyed the multiple narrators employed to tell the story.  I always love books with multiple narrators, and Collins gave each of the narrators very distinct personalities and voices.  And Wilkie Collins clearly had a very well-developed sense of humor and probably was a fantastic dinner party guest.  The slightly sarcastic asides, the gentle nudges in your side, the obsession with Robinson Crusoe and God and the rigidity of the class system - it's pretty clear that Collins knew his audience well and used his book to mock them just a little bit.  I loved it.  There are some truly memorable characters and laugh-out-loud moments here (particularly in scenes involving the sanctimonious cousin, who dropped ridiculously-named religious pamphlets like "Satan is in the Pillowcases" everywhere).

It was also a jolly good (the Victorian era has rubbed off on my vocabulary) story.  Yes, there's the mystery, of course, which is pretty great.  But there's so much more, too!  The way in which Rachel inherits her money and how that influences suitors for her hand.  The way in which so many Victorian men led double lives of vice and virtue.  (Vice & Virtue would TOTALLY have been an amazing Jane Austen book if she had lived to write it.)  The way some people claimed to be so religious but really were just self-absorbed.  The very Victorian way people had of bursting/dying/pining/sighing for the people they loved, while remaining stoic on the outside.

So yes!  It's a lot of fun!

BUT I was seriously annoyed with the way everyone kept referring to the three Indian men as being thieves!  I mean, come ON, people, you know how your shady relative stole the diamond, and you KNOW the history about there always being three Brahmin guardians to watch over the diamond, and you KNOW that the diamond is cursed.  And yet!  You still insist that it was Miss Rachel Verinder's diamond and completely ignore all of history to hone all of your resources on the Indian men.  How very British Imperial mindset of you.  #blinderson

Slight spoiler to follow:  (Highlight to see text.)  I admit, if the book had ended differently than it actually did, I totally would have knocked the rating down a serious peg or two.  The entire way through the book, I was concerned about the ending, but luckily Wilkie came through for me.  So perhaps Wilkie was making a point to his crazy countrymen, hmm?  Hooray for him!!

I think Wilkie Collins used this book to highlight many hypocrisies that existed in Victorian England.  He also used the book to tell a pretty great story, and he succeeded in reaching both his goals.  This was a really fun read, and definitely a book I will keep on my shelf.  I also highly recommend you to seek out a good audiobook edition, preferably one with a whole cast to take on the roles of each of the narrators!

Also, the book is probably going to make you want to read Robinson Crusoe.  So, just be prepared.

Flavia in Canada

12-year-old precocious chemistry genius Flavia de Luce is one of my favorite characters is fiction.  Having been introduced to her via the excellent audiobooks, she also has a very strong voice in my head, courtesy of Jayne Entwistle.  While I read her latest adventure, As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust, in physical format, I cannot recommend the series on audiobook highly enough.

It's difficult to review this book without giving spoilers away for previous books, so please be warned!

In the seventh book in the series, Flavia is off to Canada for school, though it's not entirely clear if she is going there to learn academic subjects or to master skills needed to join the super-secret organization her aunt inducted her into, the Nide.  Of course, a dead body shows up very early in the story (yes, in a chimney), and Flavia tries to solve that mystery, too.

Unfortunately, I found this outing to be fairly disappointing.  It felt very unorganized, to the point that even Flavia was utterly confused by all of the things going on around her and how they fit into her life story.  The mystery takes a backseat here, which I was fine with, but nothing else really comes to the fore to take the spotlight.  I was confused by so many things in this book that were never really cleared up.  For example, the school's principal is by turns very kind and very cold-hearted.  Some girls from the school have disappeared over the past few yeasr, and no one is supposed to talk about them, but obviously everyone remembers them.  Some of them show back up, but it's never made clear as to why they had to disappear and then show up again the way they do.

Part of what makes Flavia so magical is the setting of Bishop's Lacey and the characters around her.  Flavia loves her home so deeply, it is sad to see her homesick all the time.  In Bishop's Lacey, she's a lonely girl without anyone around who is the same age or intelligence level, so it makes sense that she traipses around the countryside and gets into all sorts of mischief.  At boarding school, she's surrounded by other girls but she never gets close enough to any of them for their personalities to develop.  It's weird that there are so many other girls introduced when hardly any of them have a material role to play in the plot.  It also makes the absence of other beloved characters, most importantly Dogger, even more obvious.

I didn't quite understand why Flavia was sent to a boarding school in Canada in this book.  I don't know why she couldn't have just gone to school somewhere in England.  It feels like Bradley wanted to get her away from Bishop's Lacey so that events could happen away from her curious eye.  I hope that's the case, and that the next book clears a lot of my confusion.  But there's a long time to wait until the next book comes out!  Still, this remains one of my favorite series, and Flavia is still delightful (as is Bradley's absolutely amazing skill with a simile), and I am excited to see where she ends up next.

A Septuagenarian Crime-Solving Boss in Communist Laos

The Coroner's Lunch, by Colin Cotterill, is one of those books that makes me feel better about my TBR pile.  I've had it for a few years now and only just got around to reading it, mainly because I felt guilty at hardly reading anything from my own shelves in 2014.  But it waited patiently for me to finally get around to it, and then it validated the space it takes up on my shelf by being just fantastic.  Hooray!

The Coroner's Lunch introduces us to Dr. Siri, a 72-year-old coroner in Laos around 1970, just as the country adjusts to Communist rule.  As coroner, Siri must write cause of death for many cadavers, and some of the people who come to him do not seem to have died natural deaths.  Even when he is heavily advised against doing so, Siri investigates those deaths.  Sometimes he is helped along by the spirit world; though he is a very logical and pragmatic man, Dr. Siri often sees the spirits of the dead, and they will often guide his research and methods.

I was a little skeptical when I first encountered the spirits in The Coroner's Lunch, mostly because I didn't really like a somewhat similar theme in Maisie Dobbs.  But it was very believable here and works seamlessly into the story as a whole.  Dr. Siri has a lot of demons and guilt, and in many ways, the spirits are just manifestations of those occurrences in his past.  But in other ways, the spirit world is alive and well and a very strong theme in this story, so if that puts you off, you may want to steer clear.  For my part, I loved the angle that brought to this book, especially when weighed against Siri's own skepticism.  It added a new, unique dimension to the whole thing.

I also really appreciated the setting.  I don't know of many books set in Laos (do you?).  I liked that it was set in the 1970s, just after the Communist revolution as the country was on the cusp of modernity but still quite rural.  For example, Siri first used a telephone at age 72.  But he also goes to a rural area and sees massive deforestation, so clearly the modern world, with its benefits and horrors, hasn't left Laos behind.  The secondary characters are all wonderful, too.  I particularly liked Thuy, Dr. Siri's very capable female assistant who also enjoys reading comic books.

And Siri himself is absolutely charming.  I really enjoy books with older protagonists, and Dr. Siri is like a Miss Marple who has decided that she doesn't care who she pisses off, she's just going to go do her thing and be a boss.  To clarify, Miss Marple totally IS a boss, but she hides it very well behind her politeness and gentle kindness.  Dr. Siri, like the honey badger, doesn't care who he offends because he's old and tired and just wants to solve crime and get on with it.  He's fantastic.

The author of the Dr. Siri series is Colin Cotterill, a British expat living in Southeast Asia.  I suspect Cotterill has the dry sense of humor the Brits are famous for, and he has infused Dr. Siri with that humor as well (though maybe the Lao are more witty and dry than I give them credit for - I don't know much about their humor).  In my head, I imagined Dr. Siri to be very similar to Bill Nighy in Worricker, except not British.  This was probably helped along by the audiobook narrator, Clive Chafer, who was absolutely excellent but extremely English.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, and I'm so glad that someone (I don't remember who it was!) recommended it to me in a comment on this blog or in response to a comment I made elsewhere.  This is exactly the sort of mystery I love, that deals with not just the mystery at hand, but with so many other things as well, with characters with whom I can't wait to spend more time. 

Murder at Belle Vie Plantation

The Cutting Season is a murder mystery by Attica Locke set on a historic Louisiana plantation.  A migrant worker's body is found one morning out past the old slave quarters, and her death seems to have many parallels with a man who went missing more than 100 years ago from the same area.  Caren Gray is the manager of historic Belle Vie plantation.  She grew up there, helping her mother in the kitchen.  And several generations of her family have worked there, many as slaves.  Now she lives on the plantation with her 9-year-old daughter, and her family is comprised of the other people who work at the historic home.  When one of her co-workers is arrested for the murder, Caren gets deeply involved in working to clear his name.

In her book The Republic of Imagination, Azar Nafisi talks at length about the Southern novel in American literature and her discussion with a classmate about how it is distinct from all others, and can only be fully understood by someone from the South.  It's lucky that I read The Cutting Season right after finishing The Republic of Imagination because I can see what Nafisi's classmate meant.  There is so much Gothic atmosphere in this novel, you can practically smell the heady scent of flowers and feel the weight of history on the shoulders of everyone even tangentially connected to the Belle Vie plantation.  I haven't spent a lot of time in the south, but Jenny says that Locke does brilliantly with this, and I trust Jenny as a true southern gal to know what's authentic.

Reading The Cutting Season in the midst of the Ferguson and NYC grand jury aftermath, with the massive distrust that currently dominates the relationship between minority communities and the police, a lot of the decisions and actions that Caren and the other characters made were much more understandable.  I can see why none of them wanted to involve the police (and, as the police were not particularly effective, why they were so frightened that everything they did and said would be misconstrued).  I appreciated how Locke really brought these to life - even very successful, very intelligent people were scared of what the police might do.

I also appreciated the way Locke mixed current events with historic ones to show just how completely the past impacts the world we live in today.  It was so well-done, having Caren learn more and more about her own past and what happened on the plantation generations ago and have that story parallel the one happening currently.  It brought up all sorts of themes that Locke alluded to but never went into great detail on - the case for reparations, the source of money for so many wealthy families, the consequences of trying to ignore or eradicate historical fact.  Not to mention the parallels between the death of a slave and the death of a migrant worker.  Seriously, so many levels!

And Caren's own personal history of going to law school and then dropping out, and her reasons for doing so, and the way her employer kept saying things to her like, "You know, I've done so much for you and your family over the years" as though her family had done nothing for him and his family over the years, and how Caren interacts with the plantation family - all of it is so good!

If you're itching for a super-atmospheric mystery novel, this is a good one to try.  Especially if I have gotten you hooked on Malla Nunn - Locke creates the same stifling atmosphere, brings up similar points about racism and its effects, and the complications that can arise from family drama.

Review-itas: The last reads of 2014

Wife of the Gods introduces us to Inspector Darko Dawson of the Central Investigation Department in Accra, Ghana.  Dawson is a devoted husband and father, though he also displays a rebellious and angry streak when he feels provoked.  Dawson grew up in rural Ghana and has been haunted for years by his mother's disappearance seemingly into thin air one day after visiting her sister.  Now, Dawson is sent back to that same area to investigate the murder of a promising medical student.

What follows is a mystery that takes many twists and turns before arriving at the conclusion, and a story that introduces us not only to the moody Darko Dawson but also to his extended family.  There's also a lot here about Ghanaian culture.  For example, the title Wife of the Gods refers to the practice of marrying a young girl off to a religious leader to ward off bad luck.  We also meet witch doctors, traditional healers and more modern doctors, learning how each interacts with the others.

I enjoyed this book enough to continue with the series, though as usual for me, this is more because I am intrigued by the potential for character development much more than I am the mystery itself.  I am particularly interested in seeing more of Dawson's relationship with his wife; there was one scene in the book in which his wife got very angry with him for not including her in an important decision regarding their son, and I look forward to seeing how the two of them navigate their marriage.  I also hope Dawson's older brother will have more of a role in future books.  In fact, I hope many of the secondary characters introduced here get more quality time in future books.

This One Summer is a great book to read in the depth of a cold, dark winter.  The cover itself made me feel like I was sitting outside with a book and a glass of chilled white wine, enjoying the glorious warmth of the sun.

But alas, summer has never felt further away.  And when it comes, it is always far too short.  This beautifully illustrated graphic novel by the Tamaki cousins makes clear just how fleeting summer is, and just how much people can change from one year to another, just how drastically people can be impacted by an event.

Rose and Windy are best friends who meet every year at the beach.  But it seems like this year they are kind of drifting apart.  Rose's parents are fighting a lot, and Windy doesn't understand why Rose is so obsessed with the older townie kids.

I have mixed feelings about this book.  On the one hand, I didn't like Rose very much, and I wasn't expecting so many heavy subjects to be covered here.  On the other hand, I think the Tamakis really captured the transition from childhood to adulthood perfectly, with all its false starts and skids.  Rose is just like any teenager, making snap decisions on people based on limited information, fairly self-absorbed, and almost callous in the way she treats and talks about other people.  Windy, just a year and half younger than Rose, serves as a great foil to show just how painful and wide the chasm can feel sometimes between childhood and adulthood.  A very realistic snapshot of a tough time in many people's lives, captured beautifully in lovely blue tones.

A peek into Kiowa life

It's hard to find diverse genre fiction, as many of you know, so when I find a new author who writes fantasy or science fiction or mystery, I get very excited.  That's how I felt when some of my digging led to Mardi Oakley Medawar.  Medawar is a Cherokee author who writes mysteries set in the American west in the years following the Civil War.  One of her series centers on a healer, Tay-Bodal, in the Kiowa tribe.  The series gets rave reviews, so I was pretty pumped to get the first book from the library recently.

Death at Rainy Mountain is set in 1866.  While at a gathering to vote for a new chief, a tribal leader has been murdered, and a brilliant young warrior, The Cheyenne Robber, is accused of killing him.  Families accuse other families, and Tay-Bodal is pulled into the drama.  If he can't clear The Cheyenne Robber's name within 5 days, then the warrior will be banished and never heard from again.
There are a lot of great things about this book.  First and foremost, Medawar offers a ton of information about life in the Kiowa nation around the mid-19th century.  This was amazing because it's hard to find books that show the daily life and culture of various tribes. I especially liked learning about how egalitarian Kiowa culture was; women's votes were required for many important measures.  I also liked seeing some key historical characters, like Satanta (White Bear), in their element.  So many big personalities, booming laughter, and fantastic detail was present here.  You can see that Medawar really wanted to bring to life history from the Kiowa side, filled with details and personalities and motivations that are often ignored in the way we learn American history today.

Unlike many mystery series I read, this one is much more light-hearted and fun.  It reminded me of Lindsey Davis' Marcus Didius Falco series.  Much as I love Malla Nunn's Detective Cooper's mysteries, they are pretty heavy.  It's nice to see a historical mystery series that shows us the lighter side of life.

I really liked the aspects of the story I mentioned above.  But there were several other things about this novel that bothered me.  For example, the women are all pretty ridiculous.  They either shriek and nag at everyone or they just suffer silently through what life has given them.  It just feels very dated in the way women are presented (at least, I hope it's dated), and I was disappointed that a woman author would focus so much on giving us so many great men but so few women.  There was literally a scene in which women had a catfight about who was the most deserving of a sought-after man.  Ugh.  And another in which Tay-Bodal wanted to show his woman that he was boss and so said and did some ridiculous things (though she is ridiculous, too, so I suppose they deserve each other).

Another thing that bothered me was the way at least two couples fell in love with each other at first sight.  I don't like this sort of plot unless it's in a fairy tale, and it just felt lazy.  Towards the end of the book, especially, I was just over the ridiculous portrayal of women and the bizarre and unnecessary complications of the romantic plots.

I didn't give this book a very high rating because of those issues.  That said, I will probably read at least the next book in this series.  I really did enjoy the way Medawar brought the Kiowa community to life, and I would love to learn more about it.  Hopefully, the issues I encountered in this book were due to it being her first novel and they won't be as prevalent in the next book.

Review-itas: The TBR Edition

Every once in a while, I will look at the many bookshelves in my house filled with books that have sat patiently unread for years (and seriously... many, many years) and be filled with a sense of panic.  What am I doing borrowing all these books from the library when I have at least a couple hundred on my shelves that I haven't read yet?  It makes me feel guilty and stressed out and pretty far behind.

This past weekend, I did a shelf clean-up and got rid of a few dozen books that I really don't have any interest in reading any more.  My tastes have changed, as you will see from the reviews below.  I frankly no longer really care that much about Medieval England's religious struggles. class struggles, and gender roles.  I really don't care that much about Medieval England at all.  As various periods in English history have prominent placement on my bookshelves, this was a difficult lesson to learn and I don't know if I have fully come to terms with it.  I think I am still a huge fan of 18th and 19th century British history.  I am absolutely fascinated by the class struggles and gender roles in that era and how technological advancement impacted social norms and roles.  At least, I think I am.  But it's been quite a while since I read a book set in that era, too, so I don't quite know.

Also, I read much more diversely now, and my bookshelves aren't very diverse.  This makes it even more difficult to pull books from my shelves to read because I want to make sure I maintain a good balance in the diversity of the authors I read.

Basically, I've come to realize that my bookshelves no longer fully reflect my reading tastes, and I've been having trouble coming to terms with that.  There are still a lot of books there that sound interesting to me!  Hopefully I find some sort of balance and read those in the coming years without panicking too much about how or when I choose to read them.  Until then, though, I will probably continue as I am now, with spurts of reading from my shelves coming all at once, brought on more by guilt and panic than by pure interest.  So it's no surprise, then, that I am fairly lukewarm about the results:

Based on the above, it's probably no surprise that I didn't finish The Illuminator, by Brenda Rickman Vantrease.  I read it because it has been on my shelf for years (at least 8) and it was available on audio download at the library and I wanted to feel like I was making progress on my TBR.  Not exactly the most promising of situations, so I apologize to the author.  No one wants to be up against those odds!

A widow is trying to care for her property and her family, even against the grain of society at the time.  And then a man comes into her life and sets her heart racing and her mind thinking and complications ensue.  And the man is an illuminator who transcribes the Bible (very prettily).  And he transcribes other (Treasonous!  Heretical!) things, too.  Also, there's a mystery around the murder of a corrupt man of the cloth.

Considering that I didn't really have much interest in reading this book, I actually found the story and the audiobook quite engaging.  The characters are real and likable, though they felt very likable to my tastes.  I get that there were dissenters throughout history that had progressive views, but I do think that you can make a character likable and powerful within the confines of their environment rather than always being the one person in a crowd who looks away from a hanging or thinks that servants are basically the same as rich people, except not as rich.  Anyway, later on in the book, one of the main characters expresses very anti-Semitic viewpoints, so that took us right back to the 1300s.  Or the 1940s, anyway.

I think I just didn't finish reading this book because another one came up in my library audio queue that I really did want to read.  And because, while I was interested in the story, I wasn't terribly engaged or excited by it.  I didn't really care what happened next.  Again, I think that is just because my reading tastes have changed.  I can see 23-year-old Aarti being very into this book, and 23-year-old Aarti was pretty great, too, just different.  So if you enjoy Medieval England and tales of religious dissent and the way people of different classes were treated in that period, I think you would really enjoy this one.

I distinctly remember reading a review of The Pericles Commission in a newspaper and noting it down because I was finished with the Marcus Didius Falco mystery series set in ancient Rome, and I thought that a mystery series set in ancient Greece would be a good fix.

The Pericles Commission works very well as a Falco substitute.  You have a private investigator who is middle-class and trying to make his way up in the world.  He meets a beautiful and savvy young woman, totally ineligible for him, and the two become partners in crime-fighting.  The guy has a pretty entertaining and fun family that we get to meet and spend time with (including a precocious younger brother named Socrates).  And the author seems to know his stuff - you learn a lot about ancient Athens, from the geography to the historical figures to ancient laws and customs and much more.  There's some humor, too, but if you are used to Lindsey Davis' quick-witted, self-deprecating, and completely lovable Marcus Didius Falco, it will be hard for Nicolaos to compare.

The Pericles Commission was just what I needed.  I had just finished Who We Be, which was an amazing book, but not exactly light reading.  And people were rioting in the streets all over America over a grand jury's lack of indictment over the events in Ferguson, MO.  Basically, I wanted a book that was fun and didn't require me to think very much.  And, damning as that might be to the author, this book really fit the bill, and I enjoyed it for that reason.  There are fun scenes here!  And while sometimes the dialogue (both internal and external) and the clue-dropping (or red herring-dropping) can be clunky, that is to be expected from a first novel.

I am not sure if I will continue on with this series, just because as I've gotten older, I've gotten progressively worse at keeping up with series.  And because I honestly don't think that ancient Greece has the same pull on me these days as, say, 1950s South Africa or 1960s America or ageless Henrietta or countless other settings.  But it was fun and it was light and I learned a bit more about Athens circa 450 BC.  And that was just what I wanted,

Death of a Frog-Catching Cross-Dresser

Emma Donoghue's Frog Music has gotten a lot of attention because, well, it's Emma Donoghue.  Frog Music is her first novel since Room, but has more in common with her previous novels than with that one.  It's a historical fiction book that is based on a true story - or rather, a small newspaper blurb about a murder that remains unsolved which Donoghue spun into a story.  I love the way she does this.  She did the same thing in her novels Slammerkin and Life Mask, both of which I really enjoyed.

The plot as described by the publisher is:

Summer of 1876: San Francisco is in the fierce grip of a record-breaking heat wave and a smallpox epidemic. Through the window of a railroad saloon, a young woman named Jenny Bonnet is shot dead. 

The survivor, her friend Blanche Beunon, is a French burlesque dancer. Over the next three days, she will risk everything to bring Jenny's murderer to justice--if he doesn't track her down first. The story Blanche struggles to piece together is one of free-love bohemians, desperate paupers, and arrogant millionaires; of jealous men, icy women, and damaged children. It's the secret life of Jenny herself, a notorious character who breaks the law every morning by getting dressed: a charmer as slippery as the frogs she hunts.

In thrilling, cinematic style, FROG MUSIC digs up a long-forgotten, never-solved crime. Full of songs that migrated across the world, Emma Donoghue's lyrical tale of love and bloodshed among lowlifes captures the pulse of a boomtown like no other. 

The two main characters in this book, Jenny Bonnet and Blanche Beunon, come blazingly to life.  Jenny has a carefree and seemingly happy-go-lucky approach to the world but asks all sorts of questions that set Blanche on edge.  And Blanche starts the book thinking that she is doing pretty well in life with a boyfriend who loves her and a job that pays well, but ends the book as a determined and resourceful woman who depends on no one but herself.


I appreciated the way Donoghue wrote these two characters.  She plays a lot with the roles of women and feminism and female friendships in all her historical novels, and this one was no exception.  She gives us insight into how a woman can be a mother who loves her child enough to risk everything for him, but still feel unsure about whether she likes her baby because he cries all the time and seems not to appreciate all the work she does for him.  She shows how friendship can develop between two women so quickly so that they understand so much about one another, even when they know hardly anything about each other's backgrounds.  The friendship that develops between Jenny and Blanche is wonderful to see unfold.

This is one of those books in which the setting, a sultry San Francisco in the decade after the Civil War, is a main character that almost steals the show from the people who populate it.  I enjoyed reading about all the saloons and dance halls and neighborhoods; I'm sure people who live in San Francisco would enjoy it even more.

I read Frog Music as an audiobook, so the songs and the accents came to life for me in a way that I am sure would not have happened had I read the novel in the more traditional format.  I appreciated this because other things made the audiobook pretty difficult.  The story unfolds in different time periods and even from within those two time periods, there are flashbacks, and the narrative jumps all over the place.  In the audiobook, especially at first, it was hard for me to always make those jumps and I got confused.  This got easier as the story went on, but I can't help feeling like I missed some key things at the beginning that were probably important.

I think I appreciated this book more for its themes and messages than for the story itself.  While I loved the central characters, I didn't much care for the mystery or about the unsavory people in Blanche's life.  As these were pretty key components to the story, I am unsure of whether I can say that I really loved the book.  All I can say is that the characters were so vividly drawn, and the setting came to life so well, that I suppose for me the plot was the frosting, not the cake.  

Mid-Summer Reviewitas

According to LibraryThing, How Green Was My Valley entered my TBR pile on December 1st, 2006.  And there it sat until, in one of my bursts of TBR pile guilt, I decided to knock it off my list via audiobook.

The book is about Huw Morgan, who grows up in a rural mining community in Wales.  The story is told from the POV of Huw many years later, as he looks back on all the hardships and drama that impacted the people around him, and his fruitless love for his beautiful sister-in-law.

The story is about a coal mining family in the early 20th century, so obviously it's not a super-happy story.  There are strikes and hard times, lusting after other people's spouses, people leaving for better opportunities, and crazy gossip that people take crazy seriously.  The book felt like a well-written soap opera about the working class.

Llewelyn really fits the Welsh stereotype of being wonderfully musical.  His sentences are like songs, with a rhythm and dance all their own.  I am glad I have this book on my shelves so that I can read it with my eyes one day, not just with my ears.

The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, by Jeanne Theoharis, is one I've had on my Kindle for some months now.  Rosa Parks is a personal hero as well as a national one.  For those who may not know the American Civil Rights movement well, Rosa Parks was the woman "who started it all" by refusing to get up from her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama.  She was used as a symbol to rally around, the impetus for the Montgomery bus boycott that ended in de-segregating the buses, and Martin Luther King, Jr. shot to fame and the Civil Rights movement was underway.

But there was obviously much more to the Civil Rights movement, and there was a great deal more to Rosa Parks, too.  Her refusal to give up her seat on the bus was just one of many acts of defiance - she had been active in the movement for years before and she stayed active for years later; as she said, "It's always amazing to me that people thought it was [startling].  It seems to me it's natural to want to be treated as a human being."  She truly was an amazingly determined woman who "was quiet and sweet, but strong as acid."  (What a fantastic way of describing a person!  I love it!)

I admit this book became a bit repetitive and dry in the later chapters.  Rosa Parks struggled a lot, both in Montgomery and Detroit, and the author spent a lot of time discussing how soul-killing the Civil Rights movement could be, when people thought no change would come in their lifetimes.  But Parks truly was such an inspiring and wonderful person, well deserving of a detailed biography, and I'm so glad to have learned more about her.

JK Rowling/Robert Galbraith's second book in the Cormoran Strike mystery series is called The Silkworm.  This time, Cormoran and Strike are on the case of a missing B-list author whose last unpublished manuscript excoriated many people in the book business.

Between The Cuckoo's Calling and The Silkworm, Rowling has a lot of commentary on the upper echelons of British cultural society.  Most of it isn't very positive, so I wonder how bored she gets at all the publishing galas and dinners that she probably must attend.

This outing is even darker than The Cuckoo's Calling.  The missing author wrote truly bizarre scenes and left chaos in his wake.  Strike's ex-fiancee, Charlotte, is engaged to be married, and he has to come to terms with that and with the tiny jibes that she keeps sending his way.  I admit that, only two books into this series, I am already tired of the whole Strike/Charlotte drama.  It just seems to take up so much of Strike's emotional stores and Charlotte isn't given enough of a personality for us to really care what she does, anyway.  She's just like this succubus, taking time and energy and will away from the story and Strike.

In these two books, I also was annoyed by Robin's relationship with her fiancee.  She's an intelligent, driven, and beautiful woman, and it's hard to believe that she would waste her time on someone who did not value her or treat her well.  Unfortunately, that's pretty much exactly what her fiancee is like.  But through The Silkworm, we get a few hints at what drew her to him in the first place - she says very clearly that she loves him and wants to marry him, and she tells him what she wants to do with her life.  And I appreciated that.  I did not want to be in a story with another beautiful, intelligent woman who just doesn't have the self-esteem to leave the jerk she's with behind.

The relationship I do love in this series is the friendship between Cormoran and Robin.  It continues to develop here, and I look forward to seeing that continue.

The travails of a man of uncertain race in Apartheid South Africa

Malla Nunn's fourth book in the Detective Emmanuel Cooper series set in 1950s South Africa really takes the tension up a notch.  In Present Darkness, the accused murderer is Detective Shabalala's son, and Cooper puts his own well-kept secrets at risk to save him.

It's difficult to review this book without giving spoilers for the first three mysteries in the series.  I'll try.

As this series advances, so does apartheid.  And the rules and restrictions that govern everyone's life grow tight as a noose around Detective Cooper, who has more secrets than... someone with a lot of secrets.  And his secrets aren't little, "Oh, I act like I'm a cool, strong man, but really, I'm afraid of the dark" secrets.  They're big, "Hey, I'm living with my non-white lover" secrets.

Once again, the dramatic tension in this book really comes not only from the mystery, but also from Cooper's increasingly complicated life.  You can see the dangerous path he's on, and how likely it is to end badly, but you still desperately want everything to work out for the best.  And because you know Cooper and his mind, you are willing to forgive him his lapses and inconsistencies, even though to someone else, they probably seem pretty despicable.

Cooper's personality and beliefs continue to evolve in this book, though I was a little frustrated that the other characters are still quite opaque.  I would like to get to know Cooper's partner Shabalala better and to know more of Dr. Zweigman's history.  I also felt like Cooper's romantic interest was pretty boring and under-developed as a character; I hope that she gets more air time and is given the opportunity to show us just how strong and interesting she is.  Considering how well Malla Nunn writes her men, I feel confident that she would write her female characters just as deftly, if she'd give them a chance to shine.

This mystery series is one of my favorites, and I hope that Nunn continues to write and give us more Cooper and Shabalala and Zweigman.  I love these characters, and can't wait to see them again!

Note:  I received a complimentary copy of this book to review.

Eunuchs and Espionage at the Opera

Anatomy of Murder, by Imogen Robertson, is the second book in the Crowther & Westerman mystery series set in Georgian England, following Instruments of Darkness.  I read the first book two years ago and do not remember much about it.  All I really know is that I enjoyed it and liked the idea of a platonic man/woman detective team in 18th century England.  So when I saw the second book at the library, I finally picked it up and got around to reading it.

The book picks up fairly soon after the last one ended.  Harriet Westerman's husband has returned to England, though he is not the same man he was when he left.  And then a body is found in the Thames, and all sorts of war secrets are at risk, and the government asks Harriet and her friend Crowther to get on the case.

This is the second book in a series that isn't very popular, so I am not sure how much to give away from the plot of the first book (which I hardly remember, anyway) or from this book.  Luckily, though, the mystery wasn't really the key for me here.  I was reading for the gender roles!

Imogen Robertson was pretty savvy in her setup of these mystery novels.  She has Mr. Crowther, a wealthy and eccentric gentleman that people don't really know but are willing to tolerate because he's rich and comes from an old family.  Then there's Mrs. Westerman, who is married to a naval hero.  However, Harriet Westerman's oddities are less acceptable because she's a woman; she's not meant to go running around town trying to find criminals.

Harriet has a younger sister, who is very proper, and a young son and daughter.  Her sister often disapproves of Harriet's actions and tells her so, pointing out that Harriet is making life a lot harder for her own family, particularly the females.  But none of these lives are as difficult as those lived by the poor people of London, whom Robertson introduces us to through a parallel story.  Thus, in one book, we are exposed to gender roles, class restrictions, and how family can both support and hinder you.

There's a lot going on in Anatomy of Murder, and at times it was a little difficult to follow and seemed to wander a bit.  I admit I lost interest in the whole murder plot about halfway through, mostly because there were so many layers and characters involved that I had trouble keeping everyone straight.

But I had no trouble remembering why I was so excited about this series in the first place, and I'm glad I picked this book up, even though it took me forever to actually start reading it, and then a pretty long time to finish it.  I am very excited to get to know Harriet Crowther better.  And as time goes on and she navigates her conflicting desires to be a good mother, be a valued sister, and still do what she most wants to do, I think her story will only become more compelling.  In this way, Harriet Westerman reminds me a lot of Lady Trent in A Natural History of Dragons, and I think readers who are excited to learn more about Lady Trent's life will enjoy being introduced to Harriet Westerman, too.

Love and espionage in North Korea

Adam Johnson's The Orphan Master's Son is a novel set in North Korea.  After reading several non-fiction books about life in North Korea, I have become completely fascinated with the country and how people make their lives there.  Johnson's novel brings a new take on that country to life - it is about the people there who know that their Dear Leader is a corrupt liar, but do their best to improve their lives and those of their loved ones.

Jun Do grew up in labor camps and then became a kidnapper, stealing people from their lives in Japan to become teachers, singers or other workers in Korea.  He's good at his job and rises through the ranks quickly, shedding previous versions of himself so that no one ever really knows who he is.  As he gets closer and closer to the Dear Leader's inner circle, he wants more and more desperately to get out and to get his family out, but struggles to find a way to do so without endangering everyone.

The narrative of this story was difficult for me to follow sometimes, probably because I was reading it on audiobook.  The perspective would shift from one character to another, and the timeline would move back and forth and characters would change facts to tell a story that was far more likely to get them off lightly than to tell the truth.  Usually, this would involve triple rainbows in celebration of North Korea, or about starving Americans being helped by beneficent Koreans.  While I enjoyed the audiobook version, I think I would recommend this one to be read in written form to decrease the amount of confusion (though it seems like people who read it in print also struggled with the shifts).

There was a lot of brutality and propaganda and unhappiness in this book.  It was tough to read.  But I really appreciated Johnson's humanization of all his characters.  Jun Do does horrible things, but he also inspires trust and loyalty in the people who are closest to him.  He tries his best to stick to a moral code in a country where there really is no moral ground, just whatever the state decrees.  It's easy to think about North Koreans always turning each other in and reporting each other's activities to authorities and living completely paranoid lives.  But within that system, friendship and love and loyalty do still exist, and Johnson brought that very much to life.

I also liked how Johnson brought some humor into this book, though it was a bit of bleak humor.  The second half of the book has three narrators:  Jun Do, his interrogator, and the North Korean radio broadcast.  All three of them are ostensibly telling the same story, but they tell it in completely different ways.  It's fascinating to see how the interrogator draws conclusions based on what he has been told and what he's found out, and how that stacks up against what Jun Do really did, and how all of this is warped into a story by North Korean radio to either laud or revile the parties included, depending on how the government wants to sway things.

I think sometimes my confusion over the timeline and narrators kept me from loving this book as some others did.  While I liked Jun Do, I didn't really care for any of the other characters.  And the narrators in the book are quite unemotional.  Which I think is the point - I get the impression that North Korea is not a country known for excessive emotion - but it made the book a little monotone.

However, there are only so many books on North Korea out there!  And this one definitely brings nuance and breaks new ground.

Flavia grows up

Not too long ago, I waxed rhapsodic about Flavia de Luce and how much I love Alan Bradley's mystery novels about her. 

But, wait!  There's more!

Soon after my post went live, the sixth book in the series came out, The Dead in their Vaulted Arches.  And this book just cements my love of this series even more.

There are a few things missed from this book that might disappoint some readers.  Mainly, there's not really a mystery; there is a death, but Flavia doesn't spend tons of time trying to solve it.  She's too busy reeling from something else.  Also, the delightful side characters that we've come to love in the previous books have smaller roles here.  We still see her sisters and her fathers and Dogger, and we get a wonderful peek behind the curtain at the woman who is Flavia's Aunt Felicity.  But we don't see the police force or the vicar quite as much.

This is the first Flavia novel I read in physical form; all the rest I did via audiobook.  I only did this in paper form because it came in so quickly at the library!  I did miss Jayne Entwhistle's glorious narration (the voice in my head is not nearly so good at imitating an 11-year-old).  But of all the books to read in physical form, I am glad it was this one because the feel of this book is quite different to the rest and in a way, it felt like me reading the book with my own inner (and older) narration was exactly the right thing to do at this time, as Flavia steps away from her childhood to a new life stage.

This book felt so different from the novels that came before it.  Flavia is almost 12 years old, and she is worried and saddened by the prospect of growing up, and she doesn't want her life to change from what it has been.  But, unfortunately, everything is changing.  Her beloved home is up for sale, her sister is leaving, she's witnessed half a dozen murders in about six months, and she's learned much more about the people around her than she ever knew before.  The Flavia de Luce that narrates this novel is still hilariously precocious and beautifully, achingly naive, but she is also much more introspective and thoughtful than she was in previous books.  Many histories are revealed here, things that were only hinted at in prior books, and in many ways, The Dead in their Vaulted Arches is the end of a story arc.  In fact, Bradley said exactly this in an interview online.  There are still four Flavia books to come, so it will be very interesting to see where he takes his characters in future.  I am eagerly anticipating what happens next to my unorthodox girl crush.  She's such a fun heroine, and I can't wait to see where life takes her next.

Let me introduce you to your next favorite mystery series

I have thoroughly enjoyed Malla Nunn's Detective Emmanuel Cooper mystery series.  I read all three in just a few weeks, beginning with A Beautiful Place to Die and then continuing with  and Let the Dead Lie and Blessed Are the Dead .  The fourth book in the series, Present Darkness, comes out in June and I.  Cannot.  Wait.

Hopefully I did a good enough job of convincing you to read A Beautiful Place to Die that this whole post is unnecessary, but just in case - here's my pitch for you to read this series:

1.  The continuing narrative:  I know many people read mysteries because, well, they like trying to solve the puzzle, but I enjoy mysteries because of the character development that occurs over the course of the series.  I don't know who the first author was to do this, but it is brilliant and I am so in love with learning more about characters' backgrounds and seeing how that impacts their future.  This is particularly true with this series, as Emmanuel Cooper is a fascinating individual.  He has PTSD, and in addition to horrible nightmares, he also has a voice in his head whom I would like to know much more about.  He grew up in South Africa but left home at a very young age to be raised by other people.  He has a sister that we know next to nothing about.  He was married, and then very promptly divorced.  THERE ARE SO MANY MORE THINGS TO LEARN ABOUT HIM.  I can't wait to peel back the layers.

2.  Detective Shabalala and Dr. Zweigman:  These are Emmanuel's right-hand men.  Together, the three form a bit of a motley crew.  Emmanuel himself has a bit of a sketchy background, and working with an African man and a Jewish immigrant makes the whole team quite... striking.  Truly, part of Nunn's genius is in giving us access to not only a "white man's" point of view but also letting us see how apartheid in South Africa impacted other groups of people.  I love how clear-cut the rules are about what whites and blacks and everyone in between can and cannot do.  (For example, Detective Shabalala is not allowed to drive a car.)  And just how completely murky the situations are in which the rules are actually enforced, and the many ways people work around them.  It's amazing and brilliant.

Which brings me to the third reason why this series is worth your time.

3.  The setting:  1950s South Africa, right at the start of apartheid.  Combine this setting with #2 above, three main characters of different races and origins, and you have a very rich canvas on which to write your stories.

Highly recommended - seriously, go read these books!

My somewhat unorthodox girl crush

I originally started this post as a poem singing the praises of Flavia de Luce, but that got weird and somewhat creepy very quickly as Flavia is an 11-year-old girl.  So instead, I shall list the reasons why this mystery series is worth your time.  And I will double-down on my previous recommendations to read this book via audio if you have the opportunity to do so because it is brilliantly narrated.  So, onto the list!

1.  Flavia as budding chemist.  She is a chemistry genius and has her own laboratory!  For any woman who considered going into STEM fields of study but did not, or anyone who wants to raise a daughter who feels confident in her ability to do traditionally male roles, Flavia is a role model.  She is smart, she knows she's smart, and she'll tell anyone who doubts her just how smart she is.

2.  Family ties.  There is so much that rings true in this series about what it's like to grow up in a family of very different personalities.  In previous books, I thought that Flavia's sisters were really cruel to her and that the relationship between the sisters was really sad and bizarre.  In the latest two books, the relationship between the sisters has softened, though it still has its ups and downs.  And as I recall my pre-teen and early teen years with my brother and sister, I think it's pretty true to form.  Siblings can be both horribly cruel and wonderfully kind, and that comes through so well in these books.

3.  Village life.  I feel like Flavia de Luce and Miss Marple would be kindred spirits.  People underestimate Miss Marple's abilities because she's this kind and inconspicuous old lady, and people do the same to Flavia because she's an 11-year-old who gets around on an old bike named Gladys.  However, Miss Marple solves mysteries all over the place whereas Flavia solves mysteries only in her immediate vicinity.  Therefore, we really get to know the other characters in this book very well.  For example, we spend hardly any time with the Inspector's wife, Antigone, but we know that Flavia loves her and looks up to her as a an ideal mother.  And Flavia's stand-in for her father is Dogger, to whom she is intensely loyal.  Their moments together are so sweet and touching.

4.  The humor.  These books center on a murder, but they're also about a very precocious and self-righteous 11-year-old who doesn't always understand the subtleties of the world around her.  It's good stuff.

Hopefully this has helped convince you to at least add Flavia to your wishlist at the local library or bookseller!  She's a treat, and I don't think you'll regret it!

Just because it's immoral doesn't mean it's wrong

Malla Nunn's Detective Emmanuel Cooper books were brought to my attention by mdbrady over at .  She reads such an amazingly diverse range of books - if you don't follow her yet, I highly recommend doing so!

Me, you, and books

The first book in the Cooper series is called A Beautiful Place to Die.  It is set in early 1950s South Africa, just as apartheid has become law.  Emmanuel Cooper is a policeman sent out to investigate the murder of another policeman in a rural district.  Captain Pretorius was the Big Man on Campus, married to a religious zealot and father to five Afrikaaner sons.  He was well-loved by most people in town, but not everyone.  It's up to Cooper to find out who would want to kill him and why, and as he digs deeper into the mystery, he finds out many unsavory facts about the Captain and the other townspeople.

What I love about mystery series is not so much the mystery as the characters and the development of those characters.  Historical mysteries in particular appeal to me as they are a really great way to immerse yourself in a different period and a different lifestyle.  Rural South Africa just after apartheid is a brilliant setting as it gives Nunn the opportunity to speak not just about the complex relationships that exist between all people, but also the ability to add in additional layers about religion and race and politics and gender and how all of those play into power.