Review of Judith Flanders's A Murder of Magpies

A Murder of Magpies by Judith Flanders (Minotaur, February 24, 2015)

Samantha "Sam" Clair is a book editor at a small but reputable London publishing firm. Sam has designed her wardrobe to function more as camouflage than style, so it's surprising that one of her best friends is Kit Lovell, a fashion journalist who also writes gossipy exposés about celebrity fashionistas.

When Kit disappears, and it looks like somebody is out to destroy all copies of his latest manuscript, which promises to be a tell-all about the death of designer Rodrigo Alemán and financial shenanigans in boutiques associated with him, Sam is worried and frustrated. The police aren't pulling out all the stops to find Kit, though they have assigned Detective Inspector Jake Field to ask questions about the death of a courier who may have been carrying a copy of the manuscript to Sam's office.

Much to Field's dismay, he's unable to get Sam to stop investigating on her own. But when he starts spending a lot more time with her, at least he can keep a little more of an eye on her . . .

Though this quick read has plenty of sleuthing, its main attraction is Sam's world. Sam appears to be a little gray mouse surrounded by much more colorful and fierce members of the animal kingdom. Sitting outside Sam's office is her sharp Goth secretary, Miranda. Ready to pounce across the meeting room table is Sam's chief rival editor, Ben, who thinks he's cornered the market for young and edgy novelists and that Sam is past it. But the alpha is Sam's mother, Helena, a supremely successful corporate attorney who has done a complete workout before Sam is out of bed in the morning, puts in a full day of work and then goes to every important play, gallery showing and party while Sam is curled up at home with a manuscript and a glass of wine.

Sam's office is in a drafty old building.
Not this one, though.

But underneath that unassuming exterior, Sam is clever and determined. She knows how to wage undercover office warfare, and how to make sense of the bits of information she is able to garner about the fashion world to try to find out what happened to Kit. She also knows when it's best to team up with Jake and Helena--and quite a team they make.

There are several other appealing side characters in the book, including Sam's reclusive upstairs neighbor, Mr. Rudiger. The inside look at the publishing world is also a pleasure, particularly Sam vs. Ben and a plot line about one of Sam's most successful authors, Breda––who sounds a lot like Maeve Binchy––and the resulting kerfuffle when Breda turns in what seems to be a disastrous wrong turn into chick-lit.

Sam Clair is likable new protagonist and her friends, family and workplace are entertaining. If this turns into a series, it's definitely one I will follow. I hope Jake becomes a more fleshed-out character in any future books.

I should note that if you're a cozy reader, there are several F-bombs dropped in the book, but it contains no graphic sex or violence.

It may also be worth noting that although this is a debut novel, author Judith Flanders has had a long career as an editor and is the author of the nonfiction book The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime (Thomas Dunne, 2013).


Note: Thanks to Minotaur and the Amazon Vine program for providing a complimentary review copy of the book. Versions of this review may appear on Amazon, Goodreads, BookLikes and other review sites under my usernames there.

Review of Robert Galbraith's The Silkworm

The Silkworm, by Robert Galbraith (pseudonym of J. K. Rowling)

Do you remember when, about this time a year ago, Robert Galbraith, the author of the debut mystery, The Cuckoo's Calling, was revealed to be a pen name for J. K. Rowling, author of the ridiculously best-selling Harry Potter series? The Cuckoo's Calling had received respectable reviews, if not big sales, but the sales rocketed when the public learned that Rowling was the real author. Like most mystery fans, I read the book after the revelation and thought it was a more than respectable detective story by this masterful storyteller. My friend Maltese Condor gives a full review of The Cuckoo's Calling here.

There was a good deal of speculation last year about how the leak occurred. Months later, we learned that a partner in Rowling's solicitor's office blabbed about it "in confidence" to a friend of his wife's, and that was that. (Can you believe the idiocy of that lawyer? He's been fined and rebuked by his professional society, and Rowling won damages against his firm––which she donated to charity––so maybe that will wise him up.) Some suspected that Rowling herself had something to do with the leak, wanting to increase sales of the first book and later books she planned to write in the series. As I'll explain later, I think that's unlikely.

First, let's focus on the new Cormoran Strike/Robin Ellacott book, The Silkworm. As the story begins, Cormoran Strike's private detective business is booming––quite a contrast to its sad state at the beginning of the previous book. True, a lot of the new business is spying on straying spouses and lovers, but it pays the bills. And that's important, since Cormoran is anxious to repay the money he reluctantly borrowed from Johnny Rokeby, his rock-star father, the man who fathered him via a fling with Cormoran's groupie mother and who refused to acknowledge paternity until the DNA test came through. Cormoran's only seen Rokeby twice and doesn't feel any desire to see him ever again, but he resorted to borrowing the money from him to get the detective agency started.

As usual, Cormoran's knee is bothering him. He's a sizable man (Cormoran is the name of a Welsh giant, after all) and the prosthesis he swapped for his lower leg via an IED in Afghanistan can be rough on his stump. So he was not in the best mood when one of his corporate clients is rude to him and his assistant, Robin, in his waiting room. Then, the frumpy, down-at-heel Leonora Quine refuses to leave the waiting room until she can be added to Strike's client list. Cormoran, being the contrarian––and good guy––that he is, fires the monied corporate client and takes on Leonora.

Leonora asks Strike to find her writer husband, Owen Quine. Quine's made a habit over the years of going walkabout, but now he's been gone a good 10 days and Leonora wants him back. Not that she misses him, unfaithful and egomaniacal as he is, but he does pay the bills and the Quines have a developmentally disabled daughter, Orlando––who does miss her father.

Cormoran and Robin get on the case immediately, even though they sincerely doubt Leonora's blithe assurance that Quine's agent will pay their fees. Robin is eager to learn more about the detective trade; she's been studying hard and wants to do more than be a general office assistant. After all, she could do PA work at a company that could pay twice as much as Strike can afford, as her fiancé, Matthew, reminds her regularly. Matthew would much prefer that Robin get a better-paying job, especially since it would remove her from Cormoran, because Matthew can't disguise that he is jealous and suspicious of Cormoran.

Cormoran soon finds that there may be good reason for Quine's deciding to lie low. He's written a novel full of graphic sex, violence and bodily functions that also libels everybody in his professional and personal life through its barely disguised characters. A lot of people don't want that manuscript––or Quine––to see the light of day. And, thus, this soon turns into a murder investigation case, and a particularly horrific one.

Plots about the publishing world are a dime a dozen, but when the story is told by such a hugely successful author as J. K. Rowling, it feels more scandalously revelatory. Writers, agents, editors and publishers in the book are almost universally self-centered, and several are personally repulsive and/or nasty pieces of work. And, wow, are they chiselers! No doubt they all make more money than Cormoran, but whenever they agree to answer some of his questions, they insist it be at some pricey restaurant and that he foot the bill.

The book also includes some serious jabs at new authors and self-published writers. One character observes that there are too many writers and not enough readers. Quine's agent complains that it seems like everybody thinks they can write, but she's inundated with manuscripts that are just "unimaginable shit."

I couldn't help thinking that Rowling would much have preferred that these observations on the publishing world and the people in it be attributed to that Robert Galbraith guy whom nobody knows. I got a kick out of Rowling's jaundiced view of the world she's found herself in, but I'm guessing there will be some negative fallout for her. And that's why I very much doubt she had anything to do with the leaking of her identity as the writer behind Robert Galbraith.

For the reader, knowing that Rowling is the real author of The Silkworm does give it a bit of the flavor of an exposé of the publishing industry. But, much as I enjoyed that, I didn't find that it distracted from or lessened the impact of the detective story. The mystery was well constructed, with numerous clues dropped along the way. For those who want to try to solve the mystery while they read, I won't spoil it, but I will say that in addition to the usual physical clues, Rowling tends to favor clues that arise from the way people act or have acted. The climax was both creepily suspenseful and then filled with action and danger.

As we'd expect from Rowling, the best part of the book is its characters. We're learning more of the background of Cormoran and Robin, and of their current life situations. Cormoran struggles with his emotions about the upcoming marriage of his ex-girlfriend, Charlotte, to a wealthy peer. Given Matthew's animosity to Cormoran, Robin is reluctant to talk to him about how much she wants to become a detective. We're also introduced to other friends and family of the pair, and I have a feeling we'll be seeing some of them in the future, especially Cormoran's younger half-brother Al, one of Johnny Rokeby's legitimate kids.

One sure sign that The Silkworm is a good read is the letdown I felt when I finished it. I wasn't ready to say goodbye to Cormoran and Robin just yet. All I can do for now, though, is to add this series to my must-read list and hope that "Robert Galbraith" continues with it for a good long time.

Note: Portions of this review may appear on Amazon and other reviewing sites under my usernames there.

Not New and Improved

In Dorothy L. Sayers's Murder Must Advertise (1933), Lord Peter Wimsey goes undercover at the advertising firm, Pym's Publicity, Ltd., to investigate a clever murder. Using the name Death [pronounced "Deeth"] Bredon, his actual middle names, Lord Peter has a tough adjustment to the workaday world's schedules and office rituals, but he turns out to have a knack for advertising.

Back in the 1930s, before television, print advertising was focused on product packaging and illustrations in newspapers and buses. Slogans were the big thing. Advertising and marketing have come a long way since the 1930s, but when it comes to book marketing, there are still similarities. Most people choose a book from a dust jacket, a website product page or a catalog, which makes it necessary to give a quick impression, almost as with an old-fashioned billboard or ads on the side of a bus. However, a big difference between advertising a book and deodorant, for example, is that book marketers seem to want to make the book sound as much as possible like something that's already been done. No "new and improved" here!

Remember back in 2003, when Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code was a smash hit? For several years after that, every novel that had any element of conspiracy, suspense, religion, history or art was suddenly the "next Da Vinci Code." All I can say is that, thankfully, time has healed that particular wound.

I'm sure you know what phenomenon is coming next. Yes, it's the late Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy. These books were a blessing and curse for Nordic crime fiction writers. On the plus side, Nordics were suddenly all the rage and writers were getting translated and sold like hot æbleskiver all over the world. The big negative, though, was that every Lars, Johan and even Karin had to see "the next Stieg Larsson" splashed in big letters over their books' dust jackets.

I've read that it annoyed Jo Nesbø no end (and rightfully so) to be called the next Stieg Larsson.  He was smart enough not to say it publicly, but he's a far better writer than Larsson ever was. Not only that, but three of his Harry Hole books were already available in English when The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo came out. So that's marketing for you; don't let the facts get in the way.

Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl is another one of those books that every publicist wants to tell us has been duplicated in their publishing company's latest thriller. Random House says that Laura McHugh's The Weight of Blood, coming in March, is for fans of Gillian Flynn. Herman Koch's The Dinner is inexplicably described as a "European Gone Girl." At least A. S. A. Harrison's The Silent Wife, another marketer's doppelgänger for Gone Girl, has a plot involving a married couple, his-and-hers narratives and a murder.

That brings us to the latest marketing misdemeanor: Downton Abbey. Marketers for every book set within hound-sniffing distance of an English manor house are grabbing potential readers by the elbow to say that if they like Downton Abbey they'll just love this book here. I had this experience recently. I was looking around for an audiobook to accompany me on my long walks with the dog. I stumbled across Julianna Deering's Rules of Murder. The cover looked attractive, in a Golden-Age-of-Mystery way, and the reader was listed as being Simon Vance, one of the real gems of the profession.

The bold-type marketing for the book said "Downton Abbey Meets Agatha Christie in this This Sparkling Mystery." (Don't ask me why the initial letters of those last three words are capitalized. It must be more marketing magic. Or should I say More Marketing Magic?) I have more than a little bit of cynicism in my nature, so I wasn't at all surprised that there wasn't a peer of the realm to be found, nor any below-stairs intrigue, and that the book's only resemblance to Downton Abbey was that a butler does make the occasional appearance.

As for Agatha Christie, well, I think Dame Agatha would be unamused by the comparison to her work. True, Rules of Murder is set in the 1930s and has a touch of young romance mixed with its detective work. But that's where the comparison runs out of petrol. Deering is a pen name, and I suspect the real author is an American who wrote the book with an American-to-British English dictionary at her elbow. I wish someone had told her that throwing in frequent "I say, old man" and "that's deuced peculiar" comments do not an English novel make.

Here's the really crazy part, though. It turns out that the book is Christian fiction. Absolutely nowhere in the marketing is there the slightest mention of that fact. I was reading about the two young romantic leads chatting at a party when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, the young woman starts talking about God and faith. I would have been completely taken aback, except for the fact that she'd just finished telling the male lead that adding champagne was a good way to ruin the taste of a perfectly good glass of orange juice. That was one clue that the "sparkling" part of the book's tag line was deceptive.

As far as I know, there are quite a few people interested in Christian fiction, so I'm puzzled why the marketers for this book would choose to keep that aspect of the book hidden. I think those marketers might be even more cynical than I am. They probably figured that these days a label of "Christian fiction," however accurate, wouldn't sell a book nearly as well as a false Downton Abbey blurb.

Lord Peter Wimsey, in his Death Bredon persona, observed that advertising's "essence is to tell plausible lies for money." In this case, the marketers should have focused a little more on the "plausible" part of that observation. Better yet, they might have marketed the book as what it actually is.

Here's to reading books that can't be––or at least aren't––marketed as being just like something else.

Dazed and Confused on Presidents' Day

It's a state and federal holiday, but who knows exactly what we're celebrating today? It's Presidents, President's, or Presidents' Day. Here in California, we're honoring George Washington and Abraham Lincoln; if you live in Alabama, you might be saluting George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Some parts of our country are generously honoring everyone who's ever held the office of United States President.

At Read Me Deadly, we'll focus on George Washington; however, we'll observe the confusion that's become traditional to the day. In other words, don't expect me to make perfect sense.

To honor Washington's military leadership during the American Revolution, you could read David McCullough's nonfiction book, 1776. Alternatively, you could strip off your clothes, close your eyes, and visualize Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze's 1851 painting of Washington's Delaware River crossing on Christmas night, 1776, before the Americans surprised the Hessians at the Battle of Trenton. Now, sing Yankee Doodle while you fill the bathtub with cold water and ice cubes. Clamp your teeth to stifle shrieks that would alarm your dog, and slip into the water with a mug of hot-buttered rum in one hand and the book of suspense perfect for today, Elisabeth Elo's North of Boston (Pamela Dorman Books/Viking, 2014), in the other hand. In the book, Boston perfume company heiress Pirio Kasparov does what few people could do: she survives four hours floating on a piece of wood in the frigid Atlantic after her friend Ned Rizzo's new lobster boat is sliced in half by an unidentified freighter. Pirio is rescued by the Coast Guard, but Ned is never found. As her father says, Sam Spade wouldn't let his friend go unavenged, and neither should Pirio. And, how can Pirio look Ned's young son, Noah, in the eye if she doesn't find out who killed his father?

I wanted to read this book as soon as I saw its synopsis, but I wasn't expecting the story-telling talent of first-time writer Elo. Pirio, who narrates, spent her rebellious childhood enduring punishment at boarding school. Now, she has complex relationships with people who seem real: her beautiful, enigmatic mother, dead since Pirio was 10; her self-absorbed Russian immigrant father and his second wife, whom he doesn't love; geeky Noah and his irresponsible, alcoholic mother, Thomasina, whom Pirio has known since boarding school; and her ex-lover, John Oster, a fisherman friend of Ned. This is a book that combines a quest with the examination of childhood memories, the compromises of growing old, and oceanic environmental issues. Pirio could have hired a private eye to look for Ned's killer, but that would have been a whole lot less fun. She's tough, smart, and tenacious—I hope we see more of her.

At first glance, the reason for reading Martha Grimes's satire, The Way of All Fish (Scribner/Simon & Schuster, 2014), to commemorate Washington may not be apparent. Trust me. Fish (you do remember the Delaware River, right?), the British (Washington fought 'em for our independence, and Grimes, an American, is famous for her series books named after English pubs, although this book is set in New York), hit men (think guns and the death of war), the world of publishing (Washington chopped down that cherry tree when he was a kid, and we all know trees turn into paper and books), and convoluted plots and lies (Washington didn't tell a lie when he confessed to felling that tree, but the truth is, he probably didn't chop down anything). We'll skip further sketchy evidence that Grimes's book is suitable for Presidents' Day and go directly to its first paragraph:

They came in, hidden in coats, hats pulled over their eyes, two stubby hoods like refugees from a George Raft film, icy-eyed and tight-lipped. From under their overcoats, they swung up Uzis hanging from shoulder holsters and sprayed the room back and forth in watery arcs. There were twenty or so customers—several couples, two business-men in pinstripes, a few solo diners who had been sitting, some now standing, some screaming, some crawling crablike beneath their tables.

Nobody got shot; it was the Clownfish Café's aquarium that exploded. Candy and Karl, contract killers whom we met in 2003's Foul Matter, had tailed literary agent L. Bass Hess into the café (Candy and Karl insist on getting to know a mark before they decide whether he deserves killing), and exchanged gunfire with the fleeing shooters. When they re-holstered their guns, they followed the lead of a blonde woman who had been reading and eating spaghetti alone. She tossed the wine out of her glass, filled it with water, and saved a fish. Pretty soon all the aquarium's fish were swimming in glasses and water pitchers, and Candy and Karl had a new interest: clown fish.

They are further interested when they discover the beautiful blond is the target of an outrageous lawsuit by Hess, who says she owes him money for a book written two years after she fired him. Candy and Karl decide to kill two birds with one stone: they'll neutralize (but not kill) Hess and rescue poor, innocent Cindy, who's been suffering from writer's block and victimized by lawyers, who may not be working entirely on her behalf. This involves recruiting Foul Matter's publishing titan Bobby Mackenzie and best-selling thriller writer Paul Giverney, and a host of other characters, such as a weed smoker who wrestles alligators in Florida during tourist season and a brainy Malaysian femme fatale so interested in the scheme that she's almost willing to work for free. If you haven't read Foul Matter, the references to that book's plot are a little confusing, but you're all smart people, capable of figuring it out, and, if you can't, well, President's, Presidents', or Presidents Day is a little confusing, too, and we're not talking about how you absolutely must understand this to the letter—we're not building a nuclear bomb here. Writer Grimes obviously had fun writing it, and I had fun reading this entertaining satire.

Happy holiday, no matter how you spell it or whom you're celebrating.

Meanwhile, Across the Pond . . .

You all know I read a lot of European crime novels. Mostly British mystery, but also Nordic crime fiction, along with some French and a smattering of other countries. I like to read Karen Meeks's Eurocrime blog to keep up on what's being published, but sometimes it's an exercise in frustration. Often, a book I'm anxious to read will be published in the UK many months before it's available in the US––and might not be published in the US at all.

I wish someone would explain to me why, in the supposed global economy, it takes so long for books (and TV series) to be shared between the UK and the US. The wildly popular Downton Abbey's third season is being broadcast in the UK now, but won't make its appearance here until next year. At least Foyle's War, beloved by so many mystery fans, looks like an exception. Filming has begun on a new arc of three two-hour episodes, with Foyle moving into Cold War intelligence at MI5 and Sam married to an MP. It will be broadcast at similar times in the US and UK. PBS has announced that it will be on US screens next summer.

But back to books. Here are some upcoming Eurocrime titles and their waiting times for US availability:

Peter Robinson: Watching the Dark (Inspector Banks #20)
UK: August 16, 2012
Canada: August 28, 2012
US: January 8, 2013

Ian Rankin: Standing in Another Man's Shoes (featuring Malcolm Fox and John Rebus)
UK: November 8, 2012
US: January 15, 2013



Arnaldur Indridason: Black Skies
UK: July 9, 2012
US: Unscheduled

Jo Nesbø: The Bat (#1 in the Harry Hole series, finally translated into English)
UK: October 11, 2012
US: Unscheduled

Fabrice Bourland: Dream Killer of Paris
UK: August 13, 2012
US: Unscheduled (This is #2 in the Singleton & Trelawney series, mysteries with supernatural elements, set in the 1930s. The Baker Street Phantom, the first book, was published in the UK in 2010 and still hasn't been published in the US.)

Marek Krajewski: The Minotaur's Head (Eberhard Mock #6)
UK: April 1, 2012
US: Unscheduled

Fred Vargas: The Ghost Riders of Ordebec (Commissaire Adamsberg #7)
UK: March 7, 2013
US: April 23, 2013

So what is an impatient reader (like me, for example) to do? There are some options. Buying the UK book is, of course, one of them. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Abebooks, Alibris and other US online booksellers often list UK editions for sale to US buyers. Often, the prices are high and so are the shipping costs. Still, this is always worth checking.

Buying from Amazon UK is just not an option for a skinflint like me. Their shipping prices are outrageous. I used to buy European titles quite often from the Book Depository in Gloucestershire. Their prices are converted to US dollars on their website and they offer free shipping anywhere in the world. Fantastic! But then they were acquired by Amazon and now, whenever I look for a book not yet published in the US, it's listed on the Book Depository site as "currently unavailable." I'm no tin-hat conspiracy theorist, but I can't help but think this has something to do with their new Amazon overlords. Especially when I find the book listed on Abebooks as being available for sale from––you guessed it, the Book Depository. In the spirit of scientific inquiry, I placed an order for the book from the Book Depository via Abebooks and we'll see what happens.

In many cases, books are published in Canada at about the same time as in the UK. But it turns out that doesn't mean it's a reasonable option to buy from Canada. Amazon Canada charges $7.99 (Canadian, but the US and Canadian dollars are very close right now) per shipment, plus $1.99 per item. Canada's independent bookstore chain, McNally Robinson, charges $10.99 (Canadian) for shipping. In addition, shipments to the US from Canada can be insanely slow, because of US customs. I ordered an item (not a book) from Canada recently and it languished in customs for nearly a month. So unless you're actually going to be in Canada, our neighbors to the north aren't a solution to the problem.

Like any good mystery fan, I couldn't let my quest stop here. I wanted to locate somebody who would send UK books to the US at a reasonable price and without outrageous shipping charges. My search led me to Kennys Bookshop in Galway, Ireland. Their website will display prices in US dollars and they have free worldwide shipping. I've only ordered a couple of books from there as yet (shortly after Amazon took over the Book Depository), but I received the books in a reasonable time and the prices were as advertised.

Just to figure out where to buy one of these books is a fair amount of work, what with having to look up different availability dates, prices, shipping fees and then, in some cases, convert foreign prices to US dollars. It just goes to show you how impatient I am that I am willing to do all this. To give you an idea of the full drill on the process, here's what I looked at for Peter Robinson's Watching the Dark. Note that all prices are expressed in US dollars, with any necessary currency conversions done on the xe.com foreign exchange website on September 23.

Amazon UK: $16.98 for the book, $11.33 for shipping, for a total of $28.31.
Amazon Canada: $19.35 for the book, $10.22 for shipping, for a total of $29.57.
McNally Robinson: $21.50 for the book, $11.26 for shipping, for a total of $32.76
The Book Depository: $19.34 with free shipping shown on Abebooks, though the book is shown as currently unavailable on the bookdepository.com website.
Kennys Bookshop: $16.28 with free shipping
Amazon US: $16.11, but you have to wait until this coming January

So why did I order it from the Book Depository (via Abebooks) instead of Kennys? Two reasons: I had a 10%-off coupon from Abebooks that made the prices very close, but the real reason is that I just have to know whether the Book Depository will send the book even though their website says it's unavailable.  [Update:  The book showed up 10 days after I ordered it. So now we know this is another way to get books from the UK.]

What I haven't mentioned in all of this is the option of buying the UK Kindle version of a book. As many of you probably know already, a UK Kindle title cannot be purchased from a US-registered device. If you're web browsing from the US and/or from a US-registered device, Amazon UK doesn't event display the UK Kindle information. A number of (non-Amazon) website discussions describe workarounds, but the steps and issues involved are beyond the scope of this post.

Does anybody else have some good intelligence on the different publication dates in the US and UK––and how to get UK publications in the US without paying outrageous prices? (Or do you all just think I'm nuts to care so much about a book I can just get the easy way by waiting few months?)