Procrastination Central

despite not being aware of any current events, even and up to new books coming out, i somehow managed to be reminded enough times that JKR had published a new book: lethal white. and therefore got it on day one.

i finished reading it a few days ago. and it was ... ok?

SPOILERS. it was still very readable - i enjoy rowling's writing enough, and i am suckered in every time by the 'WHODUNNIT???' ness of any mystery, but on the kindle i didn't realise how long it was. and for the first third or so i thought i was reading a book just about who done a blackmail, because not everything has to be a murder you know, and i thought that we were closing in on the suspects - and then i went back to my homescreen and i was like, wtf: i'm only 40% of the way through this book??? which i think is a sign that indeed, she should have edited that stuff out a bit more.

i'd also forgotten a lot of what happened in the previous books, in a way i would never for HP, and so i was like - yes, this is ok, i guess, but i don't truly care about this. except that this relationship is SO SLOW BURN. do we need it to still be not happening after four books? i think she's way too young for him anyway? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

i guess the things i want to say are - given that i know how rowling feels about corbyn, i found anything with the far left guys deeply awkward and wanted it to be over. it's nice that they weren't actually the villains and actually it was posh people who were the baddies after all (although i like young handsome men who aren't loved enough by their fathers - so i was saddened by this reveal too), but before that there was so much - these guys are so fake. and/or ridiculous. which i didn't like. i never felt that hermione was actually ridiculous for SPEW.

speaking of harry potter (not inevitable, even when speaking of rowling, but inevitable in this case), once we hit the murderer reveal i thought - hm: this has a lot of similarities to 'goblet of fire'. in that there's a big sporting event, we hang around with a cold minister who is responsible for the big sporting event, he didn't love his son enough and gets murdered by him. the main character forms a semi-relationship with the son, and thus is tricked into a final confrontation with him. obviously this makes sense as both PoA and GoF are basically mystery shaped.

i started reading 'goblet of fire' again last night for this reason. it's still good. it's still very difficult for me not to laugh at the bit where the weasleys all get trapped behind the dursleys' fake fireplace.

anyway - so. i mean - you could do worse than read it. but i preferred it when slytherins were evil, and gryffindors were good. i guess.

ON A SIMILAR NOTE -

i also read 'house of silk', which has been out for ages, but i saw it in my friend's house and i thought - i love sherlock holmes (for so i do), and i think horowitz is probably quite a good writer. i thought about waiting for her to finish it and then borrowing it, or indeed following her suggestion and just finding it in a charity shop as she had done, but instead i just got it on my kindle, knowing i would forget about it.

at a high level it is... ok? (another astonishingly insightful review! yes, indeed.) the watson voice, which is the thing i was most worried about, was very good, i thought. and, as is only right and proper for a holmes book, we spent a lot of time with him. watson did some good investigation, but ultimatley was way off base, much as i was.

one of the two really bad things about this book is identified by horowtiz himself in the 'how i wrote this book' bit at the end - he identifies that the publishers wanted him to write about 100k so it would look like you were getting good value. and that none of the actual holmes books were that long. SPOILERS. the way that horowitz has chosen to cope with this is to have two mysteries (A plot and B plot), and the B plot obviously leads holmes to find out about the A plot. this a problem because, as we learn at the end (holmes lampshades it for us), there is absolutely not real connection between the A and B plots. it was a total coincidence that one led to more info about the other. this feels like a rip off.

i think he included moriarty in the book because (according to his 'how i wrote this') he just felt he NEEDED to have moriarty, and i guess that's quite a fannish urge. but the whole sequence where watson meets moriarty, gets some information that is not helpful, gets a key that he thinks he can use to free holmes that he CANT use to free holmes, and then is told to never mention moriarty again later for continuity reasons, just feels like episode 8 of 'the war games' or some shit. the BBC trying desperately to fill time. it's pointless, and it's weird. and it's weird that watson wouldn't ever tell holmes about moriarty. cut cut cut! (mycroft shows up and is like - i can't help you. cut!)

the second major problem of this book is that the major mystery concerning the 'house of silk' is... well. i didn't work it out (because i never do) and then holmes is like 'watson, prepare yourself. you are about to see something more horrible than anything we have ever seen'. and i was like - fuck, is it child prostitution? and it was. and i was like, ffs, anthony. what is this? is it an issue of 'oblaque'? is it 'torchwood'? this isn't edgy. it's boring - and nasty. and although to some extent it's like 'ooh - we can do this because i'm a writer in the modern day', it also feels really un-doyle like. which makes it feel like a waste of time.

interestingly the B plot solution is pretty good. elegant. if it had been a short story, i'd have probably thought it was straightforwardly good.

i also liked that holmes was suspected of the main crime. this is probably something that fanfic does a lot, but i haven't read that much fanfic (what? why not???) and i thoguht it was good here. then watson and lestrade tried to get him freed, but holmes escaped himself. this whole plotline was a delight to me.

i am considering 'moriarty' (the other horowitz holmes), but not yet investing. i'm not really that interested in the canonical moriarty (although yes to the RDJ one, obviously, and anything that overinflates the part to the traditional nemesis relationship i thought it was). and obviously i was overall 'meh' about 'house of silk'. we will see.