I finished Anne Perry's Long Spoon Lane

I finished Long Spoon Lane last night. As always with Anne Perry's books, I did enjoy it very much and looked forward to my nightly sojourn in Victorian London.

I feel as if I know Thomas and Charlotte Pitt, their maid Gracie and her "young man", Sergeant Tellman. And for me, that's one of the great things about reading series of books, with the same lead characters in each one. You begin to think of them as people, rather than just characters.

Perry's books can be just a little bit dark. Maybe it's the times she's writing about. Life was wonderful for the upper classes. She doesn't succumb to the temptation to make all the upper class people unpleasant, and Aunt Vespasia is Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould, who is one of the best people in the books. But life wasn't so great for many of the less fortunate classes, and that seems to be where much of the action takes place. So it can be kind of grim. But at the same time, the actual story lines and the intrigue that go with them are good enough that it's not a problem.

Another thing I've noticed about Anne Perry's books, and Long Spoon Lane is no exception, is that they don't always have nice neat endings with all the loose ends tight up tightly. Sometime people get away with things, and Pitt is devastated because he can't always "get the bad guy". I suspect that's the case more often than not in real life, especially back then when they didn't have the benefit of all the forensic advantages we have today. No DNA testing in Victorian England!

Anyway, again I heartily recommend Long Spoon Lane and any other Anne Perry books you come across. I'd love to hear your review of this or any other books you've read.

Long Spoon Lane, by Anne Perry

As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, I'm now reading yet another novel by Anne Perry. I love her Victorian novels not only because of the characters and story lines, but also the way she evokes the era.

Each of Perry's novels is called by the name of either a district of London or a street in London. In this one, Long Spoon Lane is the street on which an explosion occurs and begins Pitt's investigation of police corruption and anarchy.

It's another of Perry's strengths that she uses the political events of the times to add to the stories and the atmosphere of the books. In Victorian England, anarchy was a new and frightening force. Mostly made up of young people from poor backgrounds, who felt the only way out of poverty was to get rid of the existing order and replace it with something else --- of course it's the nature of anarchy not to really know what that something else is.

In Long Spoon Lane, she evokes the sense of panic people are feeling about this new and terrifying violence that seems to affect guily and innocent alike. Mix in a measure of corruption in police and government, which the intrepid Pitt must track down, and you have the makings of a great read. I'm enjoying it a lot.

I finished "One Shot"

I finished "One Shot" and although I enjoyed it a lot, I don't think it quite reaches the standard of the other Lee Child books I've read. The level of intensity was there, as well as the suspense, but the unveiling of the villain in the end wasn't as much of a shocker as the others.

Having said that, I still liked the book a lot and will be looking for more Lee Child offerings soon.

Do you tend to read your favourite authors over and over? Sometimes I think I'm in a bit of a rut, and I've noticed it even more since I began this blog. I've done a couple of Carolyn Harts already, and on this past holiday weekend I read another "The Cat Who..." book by Lilian Jackson Braun. And the one I'm reading now is another Anne Perry. After I finish this one I must go out and buy some mysteries by authors I haven't read at all. If you have some favourite authors you could recommend, I'd be thrilled to hear from you.

Meanwhile, I'll report soon on "Long Spoon Lane"

Something with a bit more substance now: Lee Child

I've been reading a lot of lightweight mysteries lately, which I really enjoy. But sometimes I just want something a bit meatier. I'm in that frame of mind now, so I've started a new Lee Child book called "One Shot".

I was introduced to Lee Child a couple of years ago on vacation by my brother. Three of us read the book during the two-week vacation and I was the last. When I got to the bit in the last chapter when "whodunnit" was revealed, I actually gasped out loud because I was totally taken by surprise. Both the others who had read it smiled, because they had the same reaction.

Since then I've read a couple of more of his and had the same experience, so I'm really looking forward to seeing how this one unfolds. I must admit, it's been a bit slow to start over the first couple of chapters, but it's picking up now and getting interesting.

Child's protagonist is a strange guy called Jack Reacher. He is ex-army, ex-police and now pretty much of a loner. He moves around constantly, and nobody can ever find traces of him so I don't know what he does about papers. What can you say about somebody who lands in a new town, finds a cheap clothing store, buys a whole outfit including underwear for forty bucks, wears them until they are dirty and then ditches the lot for a new set? Apparently it saves him carrying any bags! Yep, quite a guy!

I'll let you know if "One Shot" is as good as his others.

Should they kill off people we already know?

Because of the Carolyn Hart book I'm currently reading, "Murder Walks The Plank", I began to wonder about the practice of authors killing off characters who are regulars in their series. And of course we mystery readers know that for us they are not really characters, but people, and when they turn up regularly in many of the books in the series we feel as if we already know them.

The usual practice is for the victim of the murder to be someone who is introduced to the series only for the book in which they die --- in other words, a stranger. But sometimes they surprise us and make the victim a regular. I've seen Lilian Jackson Braun do this in her "The Cat Who..." books, and now Carolyn Hart...

What do you think of this? I must admit I'm not keen, especially when the victim is someone nice, or at least not horrible. Not too many writers do this, actually. I wonder why. Interesting.

I'm back to Carolyn Hart

I went to my local bookshop this week and stocked up. I actually picked up two Carolyn Hart novels, which is unusual. But the ones I've been reading of hers lately are books I had on my shelves and had read before. Normally I feel lucky to find one new book by a favourite author, but to find two at the same time that I haven't read is a real thrill.

So last night I started "Murder Walks the Plank" and it promises to be as good as I've come to expect from the Annie and Max Darling stories.

Interestingly, the opening chapters are little vignettes about different characters and their relationship to one central character. I can't wait to see how they all tie together. I recently wrote about an author who tried to do this on a more detailed level, a la Robert Ludlum, but it didn't (for me anyway) quite come off. Carolyn Hart's version is for each little scene to be much less involved, just enough to make you interested before she whisks you off to the next one. It's a special talent, and just one of the many mystery writing talents of Carolyn Hart.

Because Annie Darling is the proprietor of a mystery bookstore called "Death On Demand", the author has a built in excuse to talk lots and lots about mysteries, which is clearly a passion for her. She quotes freely from some of the classic writers like Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers (in fact her two cats are named after those two), as well as many I didn't know at all. Now when I go to the bookstores I take a list of those names and try to find some of their books --- although some are so old now that it's hard to find them. The great thing is that a great mystery is always a good read, and no matter how old and dated the story, it's still a treat for the real mystery lover!

Why don't you tell me about your favourite authors and books? I'd love to compare notes. Just comment on any of the posts, any time!