Review: The Summer without Men

Reading this book felt like following the stream-of-consciousness ramblings of a smart, but uninteresting person. The plot sounded promising. After her husband leaves her poet Mia cracks, spends a year recovering in a psychiatric hospital, and finally moves back to Iowa to live near her aging mother. Yet, there's something about this book that simply didn't connect with me. At the end of the book I felt as if nothing had happened. And yet, so much happens in this book, but events are subsumed by Mia's musing which are simply not very interesting. Mia would be fodder for people who think that academics aren't very interesting (and I'm an academic- I know that some of us are interesting!) This is a short book, but it took me some time to get through, as I could only handle small bits at a time.

Siri Hustvedt, The Summer without Men (Picador, 2011) ISBN: 0312570600

Review: The Nine Tailors

This books is the epitome of the English countryside murder mystery. There's a mysterious dead body, an old parish church, a bumbling rector, and lots of foul weather. When Lord Peter Wimsey's car breaks down in Fenchurch St. Paul he is taken in by the rector. When an unidentified body turns up in the churchyard, Lord Peter is on the case.

In Fenchurch St. Paul Sayers weaves a gripping and atmospheric mystery. At the heart of the mystery are the ancient church bells. They are tended by a close-knit and somewhat suspicious coterie of bell-ringers, who display an almost-slavish devotion to their ringing. More broadly, the book is fully infused with bell-ringing culture. The bells give their name to the the book; each has a name and together they are called 'The Nine Tailors.' In all honesty, there was more about bell-ringing than I needed to know. Still, this is a gripping mystery.

Dorothy Sayers, The Nine Tailors (Mariner, 1966, orig. 1934) ISBN:0156658992

Review: A Far Cry from Kensington

Set in the mid-twentieth century London publishing world, this is a quirky and enjoyable read. The book is structured as a flashback, as Mrs. Hawkins looks back on her youth, working for a minor Kensington publisher. She looks back from the comforts of her retirement in Italy. As a young war widow Mrs. Hawkins lived on a small salary reviewing manuscripts for her employer. Her duties led her to an ongoing feud with an untalented hack writer, who believes firmly in his own merit, but whose clunky prose Mrs. Hawkins dismisses. After brandishing him with a somewhat amusing moniker, she becomes the target of his revenge. Their ongoing feud reveals to Mrs. Hawkins a seedy underbelly of the publishing industry, one that she may unknowingly expose. The ending is both bizarre and entertaining, and the characters are originals.

Muriel Spark, A Far Cry from Kensington (New Directions, 2000, orig. 1988) ISBN: 0811214575

Review: The Thirteenth Tale

I could review this book in one sentence: This is one messed-up family, but its a family that makes for an enchanting story.

This is a book that reads like a fairy tale. Bookshop assistant and minor biographer Margaret Lea is summoned by dying writer Vida Winter to write the latter's life story. Winter has lived and secretive and reclusive life, and Margaret will be the first to get a look at her past. What she finds when she arrived is a story of abuse, abandonment, and twins helplessly devoted to one another. In the course of writing Winter's life story, Margaret will be forced to confront a tragedy in her own past.

I was fully enthralled and engrossed in this book. Once I started I read at every spare moment until I was finished. This is a novel full of gothic atmosphere and mystery. I must say that I found Vida Winter's story far more engaging than Margaret's. Margaret struck me as a fairly annoying individual. Luckily she is mostly a foil for the story of Vida, her family, and her childhood home.

Diane Setterfield, The Thirteenth Tale (Atria, 2006) ISBN: 0743298020

Review: Clocks

This novel begins with one of Christie's creepiest murder scenes. A young woman arrives at her employer's house to find an unidentified dead man and a room full of stopped clocks. The rest of the book is spend unraveling the mystery of the dead man's identity and his presence in the home. To complicate matters the homeowner is blind, so visual identification is impossible. Before the mystery is solved a young secretary is also murdered, likely in connection with the mystery man.

I found the clues offered in this book to be far less subtle than in some of Christie's other mysteries. Indeed, the list of characters at the book's outset gives away a great deal. Ultimately I found the solution to the mystery to be rather odd. Suffice to say that it is very much a product of its time. This is not one of Christie's more haunting efforts, but the reading of it was entertaining nonetheless.

Agatha Christie, The Clocks (Pocket, 1981, orig. 1962) ISBN: 0671428799

Review: Spooky Little Girl

After the worst week of her life Lucy Fisher wakes up dead. She's in ghost school, in a class on haunting for those who died suddenly. Lucy, it seems, has been run over by a bus, and is marked to be sent back to the world of the living to complete an unknown task before being allowed into heaven.

While this is a cute and charming story it is also entirely predictable. I knew exactly where Lucy's ghost would be sent. Notaro is a funny writer, but I think her talents are better used on non-fiction. This was quite an easy read, but too predictable to really be satisfying.

Laurie Notaro, Spooky Little Girl (Villard, 2010) ISBN: 0345510976

Review: Vintage Murder

Scotland Yard's Inspector Alleyn cannot take a holiday without falling into a murder investigation. While vacationing in New Zealand Alleyn finds himself investigating the death of a theater company magnate. During a birthday celebration for his leading-lady wife Alfred Meyer is killed by a hurtling magnum of champagne, falling from the eaves of the theater. Finding the killer seems impossible; many had motive, but no one seems to have had the opportunity. Alleyn steps in to help the local police investigate.

While I generally enjoy this sort of murder mystery, this one was rather ponderous. So much of the investigation relies on highly technical measurements: exactly how was the bottle rigged, where was the ladder placed, and so on. The book also features a large cast of characters, most of whom are entirely uninteresting. I had a hard time keeping track of all of the characters, and I didn't particularly care about most of them. There's also the issue of Marsh's somewhat racist treatment of native New Zealanders. I will likely try another Inspector Alleyn mystery, but I will look for one outside of a theatrical setting.

Ngaio Marsh, Vintage Murder (Amereon, 1983, orig. 1937) ISBN: 088411497X