I don't think I have written much about the books I have finished reading lately, in particular the mysteries I have been reading. My reading has been somewhat variable. The 'misses' haven't been bad reading experiences, just a slightly on the disappointing side perhaps. But I think it has less to do with the books than with what I seem to be in the mood for lately.
Let's start with Sue Grafton. I am always pleased by Kinsey Millhone's adventures. She truly cracks me up and with each new book I learn something new. I literally will guffaw in public over some of the deadpan but hilarious things she says. I think I need to go back to letter "I", I is for Innocent to be specific. I have to dig back a bit here, but Kinsey is on her own now as she was 'let go' by California Fidelity with the arrival of a new employee/supervisor (who wants to tighten things up you might say). No one is happy with him and he is apparently not happy with Kinsey. Her office is now housed in the same building as an attorney and she is hired to by the same to look into a murder case a few years old. The previous PI working on the case has died and Kinsey is hired to take over. This case involves guns and Kinsey being shot at. Kinsey hiding behind a copy machine. Her timing is, of course, impeccable. In other news her landlord Henry is entertaining (I say that tongue in cheek) his hypochondriac brother from Michigan. Curiously he strikes up (the brother, William, that is) a little romance with Rosie (the little dive bar proprietress where Kinsey gets an occasional meal).
I hit a little snag with letter "J", J is for Judgement. I quite enjoyed parts of the case she was working on, though it tended to sag here and there for me. She is actually called back to California Fidelity to look into a case of fraud. The company has paid out an insurance claim on a death, but as it turns out the dad guy is alive and well and living in a resort in Mexico. He was spotted by one of CF's insurance agents. So Kinsey gets a ticket to Mexico, where she very amusingly jumps from one hotel balcony to another and then on to a third to to a little checking in the room of the fraudster. On her way back she lands on that same mid-way balcony only to be confronted with a very inebriated resident. I won't give away how she gets out of that mess. The mystery is just okay (though I will say the resolution came as a total surprise), but there was an interesting twist in her personal life. I was under the impression her only family was an aunt who raised her after the death of her parents. But that died some years ago, too, leaving Kinsey on her own. Kinsey was under the impression, too, but maybe that is not the case. Family she never knew she had? And not even that far from Santa Teresa?!
If it took me ages to get through letter "J", I pretty much inhaled letter "K", K is for Killer. It's not as though she has not had to deal with murder cases, but this one felt different somehow. Maybe because the young woman who was the victim happened to be working as a prostitute yet was smart and savvy. Her death was made to look like a 'normal' death and not murder. And during the course of Kinsey's investigation she befriends another young woman who is in the same business and a good friend of the victim. There don't seem to be many 'dead girls' of the type you find so frequently in thrillers and other crime novels. Much of the crime Kinsey must investigate is more run of the mill. Maybe Kinsey gets too close to the people she is investigating and sees how too often the bad guys get away with their crimes, but it puts Kinsey to the end of her tether and what happens at the end is a little shocking. It won't give anything away to say Kinsey is actually tazered, but what happens next was unexpected. I am ready to pick up "L", L is for Lawless, but I am doing a little catch up with some other books first.
In a little fit of coziness and the desire to pick up a series that I have not visited for far too long I decided to look in on Daisy Dalrymple. I had picked up and set down To Davy Jones Below more than once. It has been too long since I read a mystery by Carola Dunn who have very much enjoyed in the past. Once again I must admit I struggled with this book. It is number nine out of almost two dozen mysteries featuring Daisy and her hubby DCI Fletcher. The pair are newly married and off on their honeymoon, which is a working trip for Alec. They set off for New York City on a steamship and as per Daisy's incurable desire and ability to get involved in some crime or other, once again find themselves embroiled in the deaths of several passengers who fall overboard. Alec
is seasick for much of the book, so Daisy is left on her own to piece things together. As much as I like the setting of a ship and a crime that occurs on this--something just didn't quite work for me. It felt a little twee to be honest. Too many "jollys" perhaps, the language evoking the period was a little, well, overboard. And I think the fellow shipmates grated on me. I am happy they have finally arrived in NY and I hope the next outing will be more to my taste. Sometimes it is just a matter of getting past one saggy story.
I have already mentioned Alexander McCall Smith's Isabel Dalhousie's debut mystery, The Sunday Philosophy Club. I enjoyed this with a few reservations. I love Isabel (and how she likes her quiet and solitude, her music and her crossword puzzles with coffee mornings), and I especially like her cafe-owning niece Cat. This is series that is not traditional crime fare. It is more a cozy mystery, but really more just an entertainment--a light novel--that has a dash of mystery to it. As long as I go into it knowing that, I think I will quite enjoy her next adventure. This is the sort of mystery that might just be solved by looking at the whole picture and looking it the problem and situation through the lens of philosophy and morality, but the perpetrator might not come to justice as we expect. But only one book in, I can't say for sure and will see how things pan out in the next book.
At the moment I am reading the second Ruth Galloway book, The Janus Stone, and am very happy to get back to her saltmarsh world. I was in the mood for a thriller and saw Clare Mackintosh's I Let You Go turn up on a list of best books for unexpected twists. The writer, whose list it was, raved about this one, so I pulled it from my stack and am just at the start wondering how the surprises will come.