Wednesday now has a supply of the nicer margaritas direct from supplier

What I read

Two more Mick Herrons, Spook Street (Slough House #4) (2017) and London Rules (Slough House #5) (2018), keeping up the high level.

This could not be said of Jonathan Kellerman, City of the Dead (Alex Delaware #37) (2022). This at first seemed to promise that the victim was murdered for some reason to do with her scammy, scammy, proceedings, but no, it does that annoying thing that he has done on previous occasions and personally, I think would have got him blackballed by the Detection Club: a subplot is introduced fairly well into the story, and then after this goes quiet for a while, two-thirds of the way on as a result a character appears, and pretty much through a series of coincidences is determined by Smug Alex to be not merely the killer but a Dangerous Psycho With Form.

Ruthanna Emrys, The Litany of Earth (The Innsmouth Legacy, #0.5), short story, prequel to Winter Tide, rather good.

I discovered, what had somehow previously eluded my attention, that there is a recent Edward St Aubyn, Double Blind (2021), which turned out to be available in ebook at an agreeable promotional price. I must say I did not expect an opening chapter with a naturalist perambulating an off-grid rewilding project and thinking about nature, the climate crisis etc, but I enjoyed this a lot. It reminded me a good deal of the novels of Aldous Huxley (all those discussions of science, genetics, neuroscience, psychoanalysis, the frontiers of cyberspace etc etc) but without that dyspeptic tinge so characteristic of Aldous (also, the woowoo Buddhist is rather ethically dodgy). Plus chucking into the blender a few perhaps rather tick-box contemporary issues, along with things like the separated at birth twins subplot, and young woman struck with potentially mortal disease, that surely heark back to the Victorian 3-decker? Points for female friendship of central characters. Anyway, I just went with the flow.

Jane Gaskell, The Shiny Narrow Grin (1964), about which I wrote when I acquired this rare volume some years back. Is it, I ask myself, the least Gothic vampire tale ever written?

On the go

For a bit of a break after Terry's anomie, picked up Georgette Heyer, The Unknown Ajax (1959) - have not got very far yet, but I'm guessing that - shock-horror 'a weaver's daughter' - is going to turn out to be the daughter of a father doing extremely well in the textile industry? (Eeee, Ah'm not sayin' as t'name is Crowther, but...)

Up next

Probably some more revisiting of Jane Gaskell. Also I have found one (1) of the Coles' (GDH and Margaret, Fabian power couple, except, at least on her side, part of the Mitchison polycule) detective stories for sale at a price which is not somewhat to quite excessively steep (some of them can only be in the 'Collectable' category), and as I have long wished to have a look at these, have it on order.

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
						1
2	3	4	5	6	7	8
9	10	11	12	13	14	15
16	17	18	19	20	21	22
23	24	25	26	27	28	29
30	31

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

castiron

Well, Hugo's grandfather did *start* as a weaver, so "weaver's daughter" isn't *wrong*....

kore

a subplot is introduced fairly well into the story, and then after this goes quiet for a while, two-thirds of the way on as a result a character appears, and pretty much through a series of coincidences is determined by Smug Alex to be not merely the killer but a Dangerous Psycho With Form.

//CACKLES

....I loved St A for his series about addiction and severe family dysfunction (surprise!), and then bounced off some other things a bit -- Clue to the Exit was kind of ehh, and his nasty satire of the Booker prize or whatever wasn't that funny, and Dunbar was okay but sort of like a shrunken version of a Melrose book. This entry does sound intriguing tho....

ethelmay

I had never heard of Edward St. Aubyn - are there any others you like?

oursin

His best-known work is the 'Melrose' quintet, based on his own traumatic dysfunctional family background and subsequent drug addiction (Will Self apparently was bitterly envious that St Aubyn had such material, unlike Self's own blandly happy childhood in Hampstead Garden Suburb, which meant he had to get into drugs to Be Cool and have something to write about... ugh). It is brilliant if harrowing. I also particularly liked On the Edge, about which I see I commented:

about people in the 'Human Potential Movement'. Most fictional works which have ventured into this area have gone either for some blend of satire and farce, or for the sinister creepy cult angle. St Aubyn strikes the difficult balance between vivid awareness of the absurdities, and a recognition that there are, at least for some individuals, surprising moments of illumination and transcendance, and that the various gurus and anti-gurus can combine genuine insights with utter nonsense.

However the one that is about No-Not-At-All-The-Booker-Prize was a disappointment.

It's Always More Complicated

The wandering thoughts of a wandering hedgehog