Whilst numbers don’t matter when it comes to reading, it is pleasing when you manage a good reading total for a month – particularly when you’ve got one eye on your TBR pile, and you have fond hopes of keeping it under control and in more optimistic moments even dream of making it smaller.
So, in May I completed 14 reads, three from new-to-me authors. One of these authors went on to become a joint Book of the Month winner, but the other two were not so great. I do feel like I took a bullet for the team trying a book by David Whitelaw! Looking at my book ratings for the month roughly 50% were between 3 and 3.75 and the other half were rated 4 or higher. I guess that’s not too bad, although it didn’t feel like a month with a lot of “wow” reads. Consequently, I am grateful that I had two that did stand-out and I decided to award Book of the Month to them both.
The first winner came from a familiar face…
Put Out the Light (1931) by Ethel Lina White is a character driven mystery which is focused on the events running up to the murder and the character of the victim. Due to this emphasis, we see the situation from the victim’s point of view at times, in particular her fears and growing paranoia over her dependents turning on her. But before you feel too sorry for her, the victim could give many unlikeable victims a run for their money, as she is truly diabolical at times and White is brilliant in conveying this. Furthermore, this story has strong characterisation irrespective of whether it is for a main or minor character, and I appreciated the nuance that the author puts in their creation.
The second winner of Book of the Month goes to an author who I tried for the first time…
Midsummer Murder (1956) by Cecil M. Wills is a great example of the poison pen mystery, as I felt the writer used this well-established trope in a more creative and less predictable fashion, which made for a more interesting plot. Wills is another author who is good at creating a whole cast of well-crafted characters, rather than just a couple of really good protagonists. The geographical and social setting of the mystery is one that I enjoyed inhabiting and I would happily read a series of stories set there.
Looking into June, I have to admit my reading has not been good in terms of quantity or quality. I think the best I have read was “okay” but not brilliant. In fairness my first two reads of the month were outside of the genre, a time travel book (which started well but took a nosedive after the first half) and a purportedly comic novel with crime elements in it (which wasn’t that funny and took a painfully long time to tell a rather obvious story). My current read is Philip Macdonald’s The Maze (1932). I am not 100% sure what I will read after that.
crossexaminingcrime 