A bad mystery novel is like a burned crunchy Cheeto. You root around in the bag blindly with your orange cheesy fingers searching for the perfectly shaped cheese tidbit. You bring one up to your lips only to find, with that first bite, that it tastes a little...funny. A little too crunchy. The flavor is slightly overdone, although by now your tongue's tastebuds have been obliterated by a half a bag of salty, crunchy snacks that have rendered your mouth puckered and taste-dead. But still, there's something wrong with this Cheeto. You look keenly at the remaining half clutched in your fingers and OH MY GOD it's brown! Brown! Not Cheeto orange like nothing else seen in nature, but brown like your first attempt at baking biscuits. Just this side of charred. And now there's a nasty taste in your mouth. Ugh.
Well, that's how I felt when I finished MALICE IN THE HIGHLANDS by Graham Thomas. Like I'd been handed a burned Cheeto. Letdown. Disappointed. But it was my fault for buying it based solely on the premise that it is set in Scotland and Scotland is where I'm going in September. I was browsing the Kindle Store and there it was, enticing me with visions of salmon streams in spate rushing over the verdant hills of the Scottish highlands. Ahh. Stupid Marsha. I'm so easily led astray, especially when it comes to books and most especially when it comes to mysteries.
I love mysteries. Always have ever since I discovered Nancy Drew and the Hardy boys way, way back in the dark ages when only Agatha Christie existed in the genre along with the noir detective novels that had scantily clad floozies on the cover. My father liked the floozy variety. Once I had outgrown Nancy, I loved Dame Agatha with her simple story lines and flat characterizations. Quick reads that had me rushing to the public library every week, then rushing home and devouring my little mysteries with my little gray cells and orange-stained fingers. Yes, the Cheetos analogy was born along with my love of reading mysteries. I thought nothing could be more entertaining than to sit down with Miss Marple or Poirot and while away a quick hour or two knocking off a British cosy. Now I realize that Agatha Christie was merely the hook that I took in my brain and never got loose. I'm not satisfied with poor plotting now that I've been reading a plethora of better British writers for more years than Miss Marple had knitted shawls.
My favorites include a few Scottish mystery writers that put Graham Thomas in the shade: Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, Denise Mina and Alexander McCall Smith to name a few. I'm terribly afraid that Mr. Thomas won't make my list based on his first endeavor. Should I give him a chance with MALICE IN CORNWALL? Not ready yet, I'm afraid. Perhaps in the future if it goes on sale in the Kindle store (and, really, does that ever happen?). Until then, I'm left with the memory of interminable dialogue about short selling in the Canadian stock market (no lie!) and extremely poor editing throughout the book. Now, whether this is a function of the author or of the Kindle translation is up for discussion. There were no text breaks for scenes, which as a writer, really aggravates me to no end. There were numerous boo-boos of editing - too numerous to mention, which had me shaking my head and cursing mildly. I always read my Kindle in bed so it doesn't do to get too lathered that late at night. After all, I don't want to lose any sleep over a rant, even if it's a well deserved rant.
To be fair, there were some good parts of MALICE IN THE HIGHLANDS. The main characters were fairly well-drawn. The main character, Erskine Powell, had a catchy name. He had some angst, like lusting after a main suspect and thinking of her while he made love to his bitchy wife. And DS Powell complained about his job a lot. For CID Supers that was pretty progressive. Hmmm. Possibilities. The descriptions of the landscape were evocative of romantic Scotland. I quite liked that. But the mystery itself had more red herrings than salmon in the River Spey. Ha. Now, mysteries need red herrings, but good god, man! What were you thinking?
Ah, well. I love a good book rant over a bad book, don't you? Or even a book rant over a mostly-good book that has a few issues that raise my blood pressure. Like ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG. Errggh! Don't get me started.
No comments:
Post a Comment