Reading Notes - October

Here's what I read this month!

Image from Amazon

The Language of Bees - This is the 9th book in the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series by Laurie R. King and the weakest in the series up to this point.  I have been a big fan of King's re-imagining of the classic dectective but frankly, this one was disappointing on many levels.  Firstly, Russell and Holmes already solved the 'crazed weirdo religious nut' type mystery in A Monstrous Regiment of Women, which was excellently done, tbh.  Secondly, for a good portion of the book the married detectives didn't even work together, and their interactions and joint skills are one of the highlights of the stories.  The reader was left to follow Russell's story instead of Holmes', and she definitely got the short end of the stick.  Also, Holmes has given every impression of treating her mind as equal to his in all 8 previous books, and here he shuffles her off to the side in favour of his relationship with an estranged, and actually pretty unpleasant, son from a long ago romance.  I didn't like it one bit.  And honestly on top of all of this the novel talks quite a bit about this 'mysterious hive' situation and then that ends up being a mystery completely unrelated to the main problems in the book.  I have come to expect a higher level from King but there are several more titles before the series finished so hopefully this is just a bump in the road.

Image from Amazon

Secrets From The Vinyl Cafe is one of author Stuart McLean's funny collection of stories.  I adore the Vinyl Cafe and I think, with this, have probably either read or heard almost all of them.  I even went to see McLean once!  I can't remember what year, but he was performing at Dominion Chalmers United Church in Ottawa (not because his stories were at all religious, mind you, just that that church is nice and lends itself well to good acoustics and a big-but-manageable audience).  I remember I got two tickets and took my grandmother, who was living in Ottawa at the time.  Sometime after that I met Stuart McLean in a bookstore, actually.  He was a terribly tall man with a fantastic speaking voice.  Now, of course, both Stuart and my grandmother have passed away, but these stories are still so amazing and wonderful and everyone should read them.

Image from Amazon

Full Dark House.  This is a new mystery series for me!  I find that when I'm in the library, scrolling through shelves, I am drawn to certain books because of how they look - and this is one of those sorts of picks.  Look at that cover; isn't it compelling?  Fowler writes in a darkly gothic comedic sort of style.  He doesn't shy away from gore or tough language, but when he uses them it's for a purpose and I didn't mind it.  The characters were compelling and fascinating - well planned and well sketched out. There was an undercurrent of deep melancholy to the story as well, which I don't usually find myself drawn to because I prefer my casual reading to be casual, but actually I liked it here and it made the story more human.  I wouldn't say it was funny, necessarily, but that being said I did actually laugh out loud several times.  If I could criticize anything it would be that the story does switch back and forth between two timelines about 50 or 60 years apart, and the characters get a bit jumbled up because of this.  There's a woman in the earlier timeline, and her granddaughter, with the same last name, in the same police dept., in the later timeline.  The forensic guy exists in both timelines, but young in one and over 80 in another.  I found it a little confusing but it only took an extra few seconds at the beginning of a chapter to figure out when they were again, and the occasional re-read of a paragraph.  I did read a review that said the audio book uses the same actors for both early and later voices of a character and that it was confusing - I imagine this book reads best on paper.

Lots of red herrings!  Lots of twists and turns!  Lots of characters to keep track of and personalities to figure out and lots and LOTS of history, all of which I love.  It sucked me right in and kept me interested all the way through.

Image from Amazon

Speaking From Among The Bones.  Another mystery series I've really enjoyed are these, the Flavia de Luce books.  Flavia is a great sleuth but, again, this was not Bradley's best work.  It felt rather rushed, actually.  Flavia whizzes through the case without so much as a stumble, and the whole book ends on a bit of a cliff hanger which, to be honest, was kind of a let down.  I'd really like it if the author could try and develop the secondary characters as the series progresses because, well, it's getting a little formulaic at this point.  Hopefully the next one is better.