just love to be invited to old-fashioned house parties…

I just love those trapped-here-in-the-blizzard, oh-the-bridge’s-washed-out, Agatha-Christie-inspired “house party” mysteries. I can see writing “Death on the Space Shuttle” or “Corpse in the Elevator” or some such. This “first Kincaid and James mystery,” however, transcends its genre, introducing very appealing characters, particularly its detective, his sidekick, the intended victim, and some elderly British sisters. I’ve never read Crombie before, and was surprised to find her a Texan; she seems to both honor and update the genre and the sense of place in Yorkshire is good. It wasn’t until I wondered about the lack of cell phones that I checked the copyright date (1993) and realized I’d totally missed this oft-nominated series.

giving pulp a good name

Ken Bruen and Jason Starr have again teamed up in this third over-the-top homage to pulp.  I’ve read the first of this series Bust but not the second Slide.  It doesn’t seem to matter much, although this one is funnier and the collaboration between the two seems more seamless, I think, than the first.  The Max follows the saga of oblivious megalomaniac Max Fisher and his sometime-girlfriend Angela Petrakos as his drug trafficking and her homicidal taste in men catch up with them.  Max finds himself greeting his hulking new roommate, Rufus, the Crips, and the Aryan Botherhood at Attica, while Angie finds herself confined to a Greek prison on Lesbos.  Although they both eventually escape these confines, it is harder to run from their character.  Added to the mix this time is failed mystery author turned true-crime writer Paula Segal who fantasizes over her lust for Laura Lippman while racing to write Max’s sordid story.  Angela, meanwhile, finds herself enamoured of  sleazoid Brit Sebastian, apparently a dead ringer for Lee Child.  There are more in-jokes and allusions than I understand, but these two characters are comic masterpieces as they hatch their plots and drink and drive across the continent.   Great fun, but probably not for polite company. 

Oops, I did it again…

When I got a this a a gift for Christmas, I recognized the series immediately; I’d read all of this series featuring the diffident and interesting house cleaner Lily Bard.  I was surprised I’d missed this one, since I often went out of my way to read Christmas mysteries.  Of course, round about 60 pages into it, I realized I had indeed read this when it first came out about ten years ago.  I keep doing this.  But rereading it was time well-spend; the book has stood up really well, largely on the strength of its characters and sense of place.  I have not read Harris’ more recent series, which gets rave reviews, but it might be time.

burned cookies

OK, I’m no snob about this stuff.  I love me my Christmas mysteries, no matter how improbable or cozy.  Give me a corpse in the snowman; a mystery which can be solved with a crossword; a heroine (not too many heroes in the Christmas mystery genre) who’s equally into cookies and cadavers; holiday salads with poinseietta,  mistletoe and poison ingredients; and, most important, a case that’s closed by Christmas Eve, and I’m happy.  If recipes are included, all the more charming. I used to have a collection of (mainly) vapid holiday reading, which strangely dissipated over time to just the few titles no one wanted to read, and, hey, it’s all good.

Except, perhaps, for this little stinker.

Honestly, even in a genre where you’re not exactly expecting psychological insight and moral depth, this was unbelievably shallow.  Although some scenes, like a fire,  and a few of the minor characters, like the retired librarian and one of the lobstermen, were compelling, the main character was more one-dimensional than a cookie cutout, her family plastic even by Ozzie and Harriet standards, the plot thin, and important questions unresolved.  It did get better after the first 100 pages or so, but I’m not anxious to search out the rest of the extensive series, which makes even coastal Maine utterly unremarkable.  This gives “lite” reading a bad name.  Coal in Meier’s stocking.