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[venta]

Dear Liz,

You have known since about the age of seven that pasta shells (you know, the hollow ones) fill up with boiling water when cooking. Thus, if you bite into one to see if it's cooked, the boiling water transfers itself to your mouth. And the thing about boiling water is that it's, well, boiling. Do you think you could stop doing it ?

Thanks
Liz

And irrelevantly, can someone recommend me a decent whodunnit?

Whodunnits are my chosen form of mental bubblegum, but they have one huge flaw. Like fantasy, there's an awful lot of bad books for every good book. Over the years, I've collected a reliable phalanx of people who read fantasy voraciously and recommend me the good bits. At present, though, there seems to be no one performing this function for detective novels, and dammit I don't want to have to wade through all the rubbish myself.

For preference I'd like recommendations by author rather than specific book - most of my bookshopping is done in second-hand shops, so too-specific criteria are unlikely to be met.

I filched an Inspector Morse omnibus from Dad's bookshop, expecting good things. I made it through all three books contained therein, but only just - Morse mysteries are confusing, poorly explained at the end (and in one case, I don't think it hung together at the end at all), and written in an unbelievably leaden manner.

Here is a choice excerpt, from The Secret of Annexe 3 which I'm told is a good Morse:

He's looking at...

... the tiny bathroom, only some seven feet by five feet, whose door stood a few feet inside and to the right of the main entrance to Annexe 3. Immediately facing was the WC, a unit of the usual white enamel, the bowl a sparkling tribute to the administrations of the conscientious Mandy; on the left was a wash-basin by which stood two tumblers and a diminutive bar of soap (unopened) in a pink-paper wrapping bearing the name 'Haworth'; to the right was a bath, fairly small, with shower attachment, and a ledge let into the wall containing a second bar of soap (also unopened); finally, on the wall opposite, to the left of the WC, were racks for a whole assortment of fluffy white towels (all seemingly unusued), and fixtures for toilet paper and Kleenex tissues. The walls were tiled in a light olive-green, with the Vinyl flooring of a slightly darker, matching green.

Now I appreciate that you may need to explain in detail the set-up of the room in which the murder was committed if that's going to be relevant (which I don't think it is in this case). Even just setting the scene is necessary, and I know that (having bugger-all spatial awareness) I tend to let these descriptions wash over me. But really. I don't think it need be quite so catalogue-like.

I must admit it isn't all like that, and does have flashes of wit. But overall, I found Morse a most unsatisfactory detective to hang out with. A few people have suggested that Morse's fame (and continued literary existence) is mostly down to the TV series; I could well believe that.

While in Whitby I ran out of book, and raided the only charity shop still open late on Saturday to furnish myself with a Patricia Cornwell. And d'you know what ? She gets up my nose as well. "I did this, because it's in accordance with some random bit of US police procedure which you don't know about, but which I'm going to explain in a patronising manner. Then I did this complicated medical thing, and made this amazing discovery on account of this unusual genetic ability I have." Bleh. And she writes stilted dialogue, too.

They may well be realistic, but that makes them terribly dull. I fear the crimes may also be a little more plausible and realistic, too, and that makes them terribly uncinematic. Dammit, I don't want an international terrorist organisation doing some complicated arms smuggling and offing a bloke as a side effect. I want a fearsomely intricate plot by a nice country gentleman to feed his wife to the pet cobra whilst being able to prove that he was 200 miles away in Bognor at the time.

I like my whodunnits cosy. A body discovered, and all 12 of the possible suspects coralled without means of escape in a stately home on a windy moor - now that's the ticket. The sort of murder you can really hum, just like granny used to bake.

I'm also coming to the conclusion that murders are better set pre-1950 or so. I'm sure forensic teams and police procedure and the like are terribly useful nowadays, but they don't half have a depressing effect on one's plots. Of course, it's also a lot easier to write whodunnits set in some random historical period - no swift communications, no tiresome forensics, no one to object to some utterly irrelevant aristocrat butting in and solving the crime and, of course, a large chunk of your readership won't notice if you make a few blunders in the historical background - and so an awful lot of them are really rather bad, too.

I recently read a Michael Jecks novel I'd given my Dad as a present (and which I now feel slightly guilty about, because it wasn't very good). It was set just after the dissolution of the Templars, was a little light on background, and frankly wasn't that well-written or that well-plotted either. It's difficult not to see it as an inferior author cashing in.

So, who do I like ? Dorothy Sayers ("Lord Peter Wimsey"). Her plots are always so tight that you can't get a razor blade in, they're entertaining and the characters could walk off the page to greet you.

Lindsey Davis ("Falco"), whose first detective novel spindlemere presented me with years ago. She has developed series-rot a little, but the early ones are both cleverly written and very funny. Ditto Ellis Peters ("Brother Cadfael"), who had gone rather pot-boiler by the end of her writing career, but had some lovely ideas. She also wrote rather good modern-day detective novels ("Inspector Felse") which managed to mention police procedure without spoling the story. Ngaio Marsh ("Inspector Alleyn") also handles the modern day quite nicely, and I don't mind Ruth Rendell ("Inspector Wexford") when she isn't having one of her mad pyschological fits.

They're mostly known names, though. Raking about in the back of my brain I seem to recall very much enjoying Mollie Hardwick's novels, but just now can't remember very much about them. Susanna Gregory's series of Matthew Bartholomew mysteries, set in a newly-established Cambridge University start well, thought they get series-rot quite speedily.

Possibly a surprise, but I'd also rate Jonathon Gash's novels very highly. He created the character of Lovejoy - yup, the smiley antiques dealer chappy of TV series fame - who in the books is seedy, dirty, criminal, and very, very readable. And yes, I think it's fair to count them as whodunnits.

Lastly, Edmund Crispin writes vaguely surreal but really rather entertaining novels. I forget who his detective is, but the two of his I've read are great.

Comments

[wimble.livejournal.com]

Cornwell's use of computers as plot hinges is excrutiating.

Fortunately, I can't cite you any concrete examples. But once her neice gets involved, your only choice is to get the hell out of there.

And she also catalogues things, in the same way as you've ascribed to Dexter/Morse. But in this case, it's the damn cooking recipes. Which, really, aren't germaine.

[venta.livejournal.com]

But in this case, it's the damn cooking recipes. Which, really, aren't germaine.

Non-germainety isn't necessarily a problem. There are some great books where the narrator diversifies off into chatting about cooking, or similar. Cornwell's aren't among them, though.

And yes, I'm with you on the computers. Which is odd, because I think Cornwell has been a computer analyst or somesuch, you think she'd know better.