Murder Mystery check in

[fred_mouse]

Did anyone end up reading any murder mysteries over the weekend? Care to talk about them here?

Comments

[lebateleur]

As of this weekend, I've started my periodic reread of M.J. Carter's The Infidel Stain, (which is the second volume in a Victorian mystery murder trilogy that I am irrationally fond of). I also have Sujata Massey's The Bombay Prince and Abir Mukherjee's The Shadows of Men on deck, although I don't know how much progress I'll make on either by the end of the year.

[fred_mouse]

Ooh! I'd love to hear more about the Carter trilogy, and why you come back to it.

[lebateleur]

Carter's trilogy (the Blake & Avery series) works for me for several reasons. She wrote history nonfiction before taking up novels, so her scenesetting and period detail are top notch (and multiple historical figures make nifty cameos). The series is set first in colonial India and then Victorian London. The protagonists (and Holmes and Watson stand-ins) are Jeremiah Blake, a thirtysomething lower class transportee, world weary linguistic savant, and student of human nature; and William Avery, a mid-twenties, (secretly impoverished) member of the gentry, secret fan of poetry and Dickens, and officer in the East India company with deadly aim and an inferiority complex. Carter uses their dynamic to explore a lot of the class and social customs of their time, which I find fascinating, and a lot of the mysteries revolve around issues (colonial legacies, corporate malfeasance, censorship) that we're still grappling with in the present day. They're a lot of fun to read, and I really hope she gets around to writing a fourth some day. I hope you like them if you decide to try them!

[fred_mouse]

Oh, wow, those sound fabulous. Adding them to my 'maybe later' list (because I think my TBR pile will keep me going through all of 2022, and I'm not going to the library any time soon)