FMK #30: Contemporary Mysteries

[melannen]

I finished Han of Iceland! Just in time to get it back to the library! It turned out to not be as long as I thought, because despite the fact that the cover, front matter, and library catalog entries all said just Hans of Iceland, it was actually part of a Complete Victor Hugo and also contained Bug-Jargal.

Possibly longer review coming later, but if I did in fact own a copy, it would be a definite M at this point. Just note that there is a scene where Hans is fighting a wolf bare-handed when the wolf is suddenly also attacked by a giant polar bear, so he has to pause fighting the wolf to chase off the bear so he can come back and kill the wolf ALL BY HIMSELF. In a gloomy cave full of pagan idols.

(Also everybody except the corrupt nobles lives happily ever after! including the defeated rebel leaders!)

Now that I'm through that and also through a lot of my other library books backlog (I have read Provenance! It was good! Mercy of Kalr needs some spider mechs!) I should be able to start catching up on the FMK backlog again.

Last week's K winner was the Dr. Strangelove novelization. Should be fun! The F winner was actually Mockingjay, which I did not expect that much hate for. I think I am going to exercise my discretion and K the second-place instead, Alph, which was universally agreed to be terrible by everybody who had heard of it.

It's week #30 already! Time for MYSTERIES. I actually had enough random mystery novels lying around that there will be two, maybe three weeks of mysteries. (This is mostly the fault of work.)

How FMK works, short version: I am trying to clear out my unreads. So there is a poll, in which you get to pick F, M, or K. F means I should spend a night of wild passion with the book ASAP, and then decide whether to keep it or not. M means I should continue to commit to a long-term relationship of sharing my bedroom with it. K means it should go away immediately. Anyone can vote, you don't have to actually know anything about the books.

I pick a winner on Friday night (although won't actually close the poll, people can still vote,) and report results/post the new poll on the following Tuesday, and write a response to the F winner sometime in the next week.

Link to long version of explanation (on first poll)

Poll #19049 FMK #30: Contemporary Mysteries

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 23

View Respondents

Delete All Suspects by Donna Andrews (2005) (The detective is a computer)

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F
12 (75.0%)

M
2 (12.5%)

K
2 (12.5%)

Bone Hunter by Sarah Andrews (1999) (The detective is a paleontologist)

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F
12 (80.0%)

M
2 (13.3%)

K
1 (6.7%)

Death of Yesterday by M. C. Beaton (2013) (The detective is a Scotsman)

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F
5 (38.5%)

M
3 (23.1%)

K
5 (38.5%)

The Tin Roof Blowdown by James Lee Burke (2007) (The detective is a sheriff)

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F
3 (27.3%)

M
1 (9.1%)

K
7 (63.6%)

Providence Rag by Bruce DeSilva (1999) (The detective is a reporter)

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F
5 (50.0%)

M
1 (10.0%)

K
4 (40.0%)

The Dinosaur Feather by Sissel-Jo Gavan (2013) (The detective is a Scandinavian policeman)

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F
10 (76.9%)

M
1 (7.7%)

K
2 (15.4%)

Angora Alibi by Sally Goldenbaum (2013) (The detective is a knitter)

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F
11 (73.3%)

M
2 (13.3%)

K
2 (13.3%)

Danger In DC edited by Martin Greenberg (1993) (The detectives are cats)

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F
14 (82.4%)

M
1 (5.9%)

K
2 (11.8%)

Strangled Prose by Joan Hess (1986) (The detective is a bookstore owner)

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F
8 (66.7%)

M
4 (33.3%)

K
0 (0.0%)

Bones in High Places by Suzette Hill (2010) (The detective is a vicar)

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F
4 (40.0%)

M
4 (40.0%)

K
2 (20.0%)

Guy Noir and the Straight Skinny by Garrison Keillor (2012) (The detective is a... detective?)

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F
8 (47.1%)

M
0 (0.0%)

K
9 (52.9%)

Eat, Drink and Be Buried by Peter King (2001) (The detective is a professional 'culinary sleuth'.)

View Answers

F
7 (63.6%)

M
1 (9.1%)

K
3 (27.3%)

Comments

[the_rck]

Donna Andrews is one of my favorite authors. When she started publishing, she had two series. One is still going. This is the other one. The AI aspects may not have aged well in terms of how our technology has developed, but my recollection is that this series had better mysteries while the other had a more engaging narrator. Also the surviving series doesn't require as much research.

Every time I've tried a Beaton book, I've wanted to kill the POV character within ten pages but see no prospect of the plot ever going that way.

Guy Noir is based on the Prairie Home Companion character. I'm not sure if he can be sustained at book length, and so much of the character depends on Keillor's delivery that I'd want an audiobook version.

[sheliak]

I enjoyed Delete All Suspects and its (first?) sequel, although not as much as Andrews' other series. (In that one, the detective is a blacksmith! There's not enough blacksmithing in it—I'm not sure the protagonist ever smiths on page, although she does talk about her work and sell her pieces—but I like the main character and the weirdness of the rest of the cast. (IIRC I liked Turing herself, and the other prominent AI character, but the human characters made precisely no impression on me.)

The rest of the titles aren't familiar to me, so I voted based on how entertaining the protagonists' day jobs sounded.

I have not read Alph, but I approve of killing it; I can't remember any other book getting no Fs.

[gehayi]

I'm not familiar with any of the books, so I picked based on how good the professions sounded and, in the cases of Beaton, Burke, DeSilva and Greenburg, whether I've enjoyed other books by the author. Everything got an F with the exception of the knitter detective and Garrison Keillor's book. Neither sounded like anything I'd care about.

[marginaliana]

I feel ambivalent about knitter/bookstore owner style detectives. As a one-shot they can probably be okay, but I've read a couple that turned out to be a series in the cozy-mystery vein and it just feels so... IDK, improbable? How many murders can a bookstore owner realistically come across??

And also the protagonist so often turns out to be a doofy idiot who really should step back and let the police do their work, which is not the feeling you want to have about an amateur detective.

That said, sometimes you can get one that transcends the genre - I read one where the detective was a record collector and that one was pretty great. (Although I haven't read book two, I must admit.)

I do want to see your thoughts about the detective cats. I read one where the detectives were sheep once, which sadly did not deliver on the premise as well as I'd hoped. But detective cats have a lot of potential!