| Yesterday I read Even Cat Sitters Get the Blues, one in a series of Dixie Hemingway, pet sitter, murder mysteries written by Blaize Clement. The mystery was inventive but innocuous; the heroine is a pleasant enough knock-off of Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Milhone (ex-cop lives in tiny digs; eschews possessions, feminine wiles, and cooking skills; childhood marked by absent parents but protective stand-ins; mourning lost VIPs in life but still sexually awake; and good-looking without trying); the supporting characters are one-dimensional backups; and the pace is easy, fast, and fun. No brainwork required on this mystery, and neither chills nor thrills are in offer, but Dixie Hemingway provides comfort food when bland carbos are the order of the day.
I prefer my female detective mysteries a little grittier and the females themselves a little tougher, like Sue Grafton’s always good Kinsey Milhone mysteries and Sara Paretsky’s wonderful series starring V.I. Warshawksi. I also love mysteries that combine great plot, finely-tuned details (gritty and not), and well-developed atmosphere, as in Donna Leon’s Brunetti mysteries set in Venice, Martha Grimes’ Richard Jury adventures, P.D. James’ Adam Dalgiesh novels, Aaron Elkins’ Bone Detective series, and John Burdett’s Sonchai Jitpleecheep mysteries set in Bangkok. If I’m not in the mood for gritty, I reach for humorous plots and eccentric characters as in M.C. Beaton’s two series, Hamish Macbeth in the Highlands of Scotland and Agatha Raisin in the Cotswolds, and the Aunt Dimity series by Nancy Atherton. For historical mystery, nothing can beat C.J. Sansom and his Tudor-era thrillers involving the hunchback lawyer Matthew Shardlake, and the mysteries of Peter Tremayne set in eighth century Ireland and starring Sister Fidelma. Lawyer, sister of the king, religeuse, and expert at self-defense and self-preservation, Fidelma is one tough woman. |
