A Orgy of Crime

It’s the day after Valentine’s Day and I have to report that my darling husband came through like a champ.  Two dozen roses and two boxes of chocolate.   Swoon!

I wish I could report that my reading was going as well.  I just could not face another heavy novel, so I took a break from everything Dickens and read some plain ole fluff.

Still Life is the first in the Inspector Gamache mystery series by Louise Penny.  The book won both the  New Blood Dagger (Britain) and the Arthur Ellis Award (Canada) for Best First Crime Novel. Still Life was also named one of the Kirkus Reviews Top Ten mysteries of 2006.

The series is set in the fictional town of Thee Pines in Canada.  Still Life uses the murder of a beloved Three Pines woman, Jane Neal, to introduce readers to a cast of local characters and to the series’ protagonist Chief Inspector Armand Gamache.  Also introduced are Gamache’s colleagues: second-in-command Jean Guy Beauvoir and new recruit Agent Yvette Nichol.  No one in the town is exempt from suspicion of Ms Neal’s murder and possible motives run the gamut from revenge, to greed, to jealousy, to wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time.

While not quite fitting into the category of a cozy (which generally feature a nonprofessional detective), Still Life is still what I would consider a ‘lite’ mystery.  The murder, though gruesome (arrow through the throat, anyone?), is relatively fluffy as crime novels go.  There’s little blood and no guts.  Among the villagers themselves there are plenty of suspects, and, as usual in these types of mysteries, the most obvious suspects turn out to be the wrong ones.  Still Life doesn’t play fair with readers, not giving enough clues for the reader to figure out the murderer before the story‘s climax.  Despite this, Still Life was interesting and well-written enough to hold my attention to the end and make me want to read more of the series.

I have been eagerly anticipating Mo Hayder’s newest novel, Hanging Hill, since I heard about it last summer.  Sadly, I was not impressed.  Hanging Hill is a stand-alone novel by Hayder, who first came to my attention with her 1998 debut novel Birdman.

Hanging Hill is the story of two sisters: one a police officer, one a down-but-not-quite-out divorcee with a rebellious teenage daughter.  The novel starts with the murder of another of the town’s teen schoolgirls and builds to include shady drug dealers and pornographers, friends and lovers of the main characters, and long-standing unresolved conflict between the sisters.

Hanging Hill ranks in the realm of ‘eh … ok’.  I was not particularly invested in any of the main characters and could have cared less what happened to them.  The big reveal at the end of the story is typical for a Hayder novel, but I could see it coming a mile away.

If you’ve not read her novels before, be aware that Hayder is a thriller writer who does not pull any punches in the gore department.  Though you wouldn’t know it from Hanging Hill, there are scenes from Mo Hayder novels that I still find disturbing years after reading the books.  If you like thrillers similar to Silence of the Lambs or Heartsick, you might enjoy Hayder’s other books.  Start with Birdman (Jack Caffrey #1) or Pig Island (stand alone).

Last but not least on my crime orgy of the past week is Rush by Kim Wozencraft.  Rush is a reread that has been on my shelf for probably five years and was the basis for a movie of the same title starring Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jason Patric.  The movie followed the plot of the book very closely, so if you see one, you’ve seen ‘em both.  Rush is a well written, fast paced and unflinching look at the lives of two undercover narcotics officers who become caught up in addiction and corruption …. and pay the price.

This was certainly not a week of fine and challenging Literature but these novels provided a much needed break.  My synapses were fried and sometimes there’s no better cure than a crap read.


Ratings:  Still Life  3 stars
      Hanging Hill  2 ½ stars
      Rush  3 ½ stars

Rating system:  1 star -- Don’t Bother
 2 stars -- Only If You’re Bored
 3 stars -- A Good Read
 4 stars -- Don’t Miss It
 5 stars -- Run, Don’t Walk, To Get This Book