Yankee Doodle Dead

I found myself with no new books to read yesterday --- sometimes happens, although not often because I like to keep some unread treasures on my shelves at all times.

Anyway, I don't mind at all rereading books, and I have whole collections by favourite authors that I often go back to. Yesterday I was in the mood for Carolyn Hart's Annie and Max Darling, so I picked up "Yankee Doodle Dead" and I'm enjoying it just as much as on the first reading. I can't remember "whodunnit", but even if I did I would still enjoy it.

The Annie and Max books are set on a fictitional island in the "low country" of South Carolina called Broward's Rock, where Annie owns a mystery bookstore called "Death On Demand". For such a small community, Broward's Rock sure has its share of murder and mayhem! This one takes place around the Fourth of July holiday --- hence the title --- and involves a whole new set of characters as well as regulars such as Miss Dora, the dowager from Chastain on the mainland, Max's mother Laurel, and Henny Brawley, Annie's favourite customer. Annie and Henny are both ardent mystery lovers, and are fond of firing quotations at each other to see if they can recognize them. I must admit, I am not in their class and don't know many of the authors, let alone the books and quotations.

As I said, I started the book yesterday and will probably finish it tonight, which is one of the joys of mystery stories. On the weekend I'll make sure I stock up on some new ones to start next week. I'll keep you posted.

Robert Ludlum he ain't!

As a reader, I hate to give up on a book. In some books the storyline takes a while to build up, or the characters don't really become real for a bit. Even though I don't like that, I do persevere because I know things could get better. I could probably count on my fingers the number of books I've EVER started and then abandoned before I finished.

Well, I can now add "The Moscow Vector" to that list. Patrick Larkin is clearly trying to follow the Ludlum formula, but it's not an easy thing to do without the Ludlum talent! Larkin's writing is so self-conscious it intrudes into the reading process, which is not good. There's a difference between language that helps set a scene, and a bunch of words that just sound as if someone found them in a Thesaurus.

Another problem for Larkin is the vaunted Ludlum way of beginning in one location, such as Moscow, and telling just enough of a story to get the reader hooked, and then stopping, and starting another story in, say, London. He jumps around among these various stories and places, and eventually there's a thread that pulls the whole novel together in the end. The trouble is, that's a hard thing to pull off unless you are truly talented, as Ludlum was.

I've read about a quarter of the book, and honestly I couldn't really tell you much about it because my mind keeps wandering as I try to read. Rather than being intrigued, I'm just bored. So after using up three nights of my recreational reading time, I'm afraid I'm giving up on this one. I've also made a resolution: never buy another book with Robert Ludlum's name on it unless it was written by Robert Ludlum!

But is it really a Ludlum book?

In my last post I ranted a bit about the book always being better than the movie (and having finished the Harry Potter book again, I'm even more convinced of that), but today I'm questioning another practice: that of one writer continuing the work of another.

I've always been a Robert Ludlum fan. I read everything from the early novels like The Osterman Weekend through The Bourne Identity (much better than the movie), and on through each new novel as it was released. If you're a fan, you'll know that Robert Ludlum died a few years ago, but a person wouldn't necessarily know that from glancing at the most recent books. Ludlum books have been rereleased for years, with the same picture of the author on the inside back cover. The blurb talks about his prolific writing career, but never mentions his death.

Now, a number of other authors have come into the picture. I didn't notice this at first, but when reading one of those books I suddenly thought the dialogue was "off" somehow --- just not what Robert Ludlum would have his characters say. That's when I realized I wasn't reading Robert Ludlum! I've just begun reading "The Moscow Vector", which is one of the Covert One books. On the cover it says, "Series created by Robert Ludlum, author Patrick Larkin". I don't know whether I'm biased, but even in the first few chapters I feel the book doesn't have the momentum a "real" Ludlum would have. But as I say, maybe I'm biased, so I'll reserve judgement until I've read the whole book.

Maybe if I read the other authors' books completely separately from the Ludlum books I would enjoy them better. I'm afraid, though, that this way I just see them as "no Robert Ludlum".

The book is always better

Yesterday I watched the movie "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire", and it just reinforced what I've always believed: when you can choose between a book and the movie, always go for the book!

Everyone raved about this movie when it came out last year in theatres, and I will admit it's quite well done. But I have two negative comments about it:

First, there are at least three storylines in the book that simply don't appear in the movie. I realize why, of course, because if everything was there the movie would last about eight hours! But still, it's a powerful argument in favour of the book.

Second, and I think this is very important with recurring characters and themes, although the director's vision of Harry and his friends, as well as Hogwarts, and train and all the other things that make the stories special, are quite well matched to the book, still they are not MY vision. That's the beauty of a book --- you are the director, you can see, hear and feel it exactly the way YOU want it.

But watching the movie put me in a "Harry" mood, so I'm rereading this story now and loving it.

I finished Bedford Square

I finished "Bedford Square", and I can tell you I was kept guessing until the last page!

Do you often figure out "whodunnit"? Of course it's hard not to try to guess who did the crime, but one of my criteria for judging a really good mystery is that I didn't get it right. In fact, it's kind of disappointing when I do guess.

I'm moving on to something different now because although I do enjoy Anne Perry's Victorian atmosphere, I need a rest from it now. I'll let you know what I'm reading next after I decide!

In the meantime, what are YOU reading?