In an effort to prove that I don't turn up my nose at everything I read I plan a couple of posts on books I have enjoyed recently and this is the first one. I've mentioned before that my friend E has a habit of passing along carrier bags full of books and her latest one, a wee while ago now, included several of Val MacDermid's Tony Hill/Carol Jordan books. I have avoided these in the past, largely due to the fact that they were televised with Hermione Norris as Carol Jordan. I didn't watch them because Hermione Norris has one of those little sneery faces that I don't like, totally unfair I know, she's probably a good actress but I don't like watching her and so I didn't watch them. Also I tried a Val MacDermid once years ago, and obviously it was one of those times when you just pick up the wrong book and it puts you off the author forever.
But I thought I would give one of these a try, so I did. And got hooked. My interest in deviant psychology possibly has a lot to do with that; I don't want to come up against an instance of it IRL but I like to read about it. Incidentally MacDermid's deviants are shocking and generally kill women, so I was rather annoyed when a man opined on Saturday that her first Tony Hill book was to do with a man who captured gay men and tortured them to death and he 'didn't want to read about that sort of thing'. Which is totally fine and a valid position to take but I thought it was interesting that he didn't want to read about the murder of gay men, but didn't mention not wanting to read about murdered women. I should have challenged him on it at the time but I didn't think of it.
Anyway, no-one more surprised than me that I enjoyed these so much. There were three in the bag and I've since borrowed another in the series from the library, plus read 1989, which was long listed for several crime novel prizes this year. I've also just embarked on one about a female DI in Edinburgh. I'm pleased really. I've seem Val MacD interviewed and heard her on panels at crime reading festivals and always thought she seemed a lively warm funny person and it was a case of 'You seem fine, I wish I liked your books better'. And now I do.
We read an Elly Griffiths once at Saturday Slaughters; one of her Ruth Galloway series of which I am a big fan. Most of them moaned about it. I forget what their problems were but possibly they didn't like the archaeological background. They also thought there was too much of normal life woven in around the detective story; good heavens, there were even mentions of Radio 4. The Galloway series recently ended and I was quite pleased that Griffiths had seen that it was time to do that. She has two others which I have sampled and enjoy but not as much as the RG ones.
Two crime writers I've come to recently are Vaseem Khan and Abir Mukherjee, British Asians who set their work in India. Mukherjee's take place just after WW1, as some Indians are starting to agitate for independence from Britain and Khan's are set just a few years after Independence has been gained. Both are excellent at depicting the difficulties of Anglo-British relations during and just after the time of the Raj., Their books are also well plotted and with some good central characters who develop as their series go on - always a plus.
So there you go. I'm not really a negative Nelly. Next up - Historians and Spies.
Big fan of Val McD, and Elly Griffiths - the other two have gone onto my reading list!
ReplyDeleteI read two of the Tony Hill ones but there was too much yuck in it for me. I like her other detectives but not enough to remember the names etc! I read the first of EG's Ruth Galloway series as it had been so often recommended - and hated it. I do not enjoy reading fiction written in first person present tense.
ReplyDelete(I am also getting a bit jaded over the angsty lead characters whose bizarre pasts etc seem more important than detecting crime.)