I’m going through a very frustrating phase in my reading life. It’s very unsettling; I can’t seem to find the ‘Goldilocks’ book, the one that’s just right. My library bag is full of returns that I’ve glanced into and skimmed and rejected. I always have a book on the go, and often two or three, so is this a sign that I really should be doing something else? But what? There’s nothing like a sinking into a good book. I just have to find the right one. Or persevere with the ones I’ve started.
Well, I’m making myself trudge through a ‘creative memoir’ at present, and the more I persevere, the pickier I get. The prose seems clumsier, the structure clunkier, the whole thing obvious and trite and unbearably serious with every page. It was well-reviewed and highly recommended by a writer I particularly like (I even subscribe, for ACTUAL MONEY, to her Substack) so wanted to read it. And I waited for ages for my reserve to make it to #1 in the library queue. Sigh. But I don’t like to write about books I don’t enjoy, so I won’t.
Instead, I’ll tell you about Death at the Sign of the Rook. It was the last novel I truly devoured; a new Jackson Brodie novel. I was a tiny bit book-shy, because the last one I read was quite shattering (from memory, child sexual abuse by highly connected Tories, or was it media types?).
There was no need to worry, and I should have known from the title. This is Atkinson having loads of fun with the genre.
Brodie is slowing down, and so is business. He’s hired by an elderly brother and sister to find a Renaissance portrait that’s gone missing from their mother’s house. Has the care worker stolen it? It just so happens that a Turner has disappeared from a nearby stately home, in similar circumstances. The coincidence is too much for Brodie, so he reaches out to Reggie Chase (who featured in When Will There Be Good News?) who’s on the case. The novel then takes a turn into classic golden era British crime with a snowstorm, an axe murderer, a mute vicar, a one-legged Major and a cast of nasty aristocrats and tourists at a farcical Murder Mystery weekend. Actually, the whole thing descends into farce. I laughed out loud. Which is alarming, when you consider that people were getting violently killed and maimed.
It was clever and funny and, in the desert of reading matter I have stumbled into, a delightful drink of sherry in the library. On a silver tray. With little cheese biscuits.
I’ve read better mysteries, but with much less enjoyment.
Ooh, I’m looking forward to this one!
I was a bit underwhelmed by Transcription but this sounds excellent.
l enjoyed the first half immensely since the art history theme was compelling but the second half really descended into farce and I kind of lost interest in the embedded murder mystery.