Recent reading

[troisoiseaux]

Read two different mysteries that featured bodies in the gymnasium of an all-girls school: Agatha Christie's Cat Among the Pigeons (1959) and Josephine Tey's Miss Pym Disposes (1947). Otherwise completely different books— the Christie is one of her Poirot books, but arguably the story's real detective is the plucky teenage daughter of a former spy, and features more international intrigue and missing jewels than "murder mystery at an all-girls school" would suggest. The Tey is sort of an anti-detective novel— the titular Miss Pym, a visiting lecturer on psychology at a women's physical training college when tragedy strikes, not only stumbles across her clues by accident but has a tendency to absently pick them up and stick them in her pocket, miss their significance, or actively suppress their existence; you get the sense that a mystery narrative is doing its best to coalesce around her and she's trying equally hard to slither out of it.

I enjoyed both, but I suspect that Tey's will stick in my head for longer: among other reasons, because I love (as a literary dynamic) a good unhealthily intense, codependent friendship, and hoo boy does this deliver. Wealthy, beautiful, and charismatic "Beau" Nash and ambitious, aloof Mary Innes are described early in the novel as having a "David and Jonathan" friendship; while Miss Pym suspects that Innes caused the fatal accident which helpfully took out the student who had been given the "plum" posting everyone thought should have been hers, it turns out that Beau had killed for Innes' sake, but when confronted by Miss Pym, Innes sacrifices her future for Beau's, and it's just *chef's kiss* so pyrrhic.

I have a number of books currently in progress, but the one worth mentioning now is The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett; skygiants piqued my interest by comparing Peter Wimsey-as-Harlequin in Murder Must Advertise to Dunnett's Francis Crawford of Lymond. I'm always a sucker for charming rogues roped into geopolitical intrigue - see Megan Whalen Turner, Scott Lynch, and Lynn Flewelling - but Lymond is probably the most... intense... version of this trope I've encountered. So far, it's unclear what his motivations are, which has me feeling like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop— the reader is supposed to root for him, right??? It's called the Lymond Chronicles, so one would assume, but he's just set his family castle on fire with his mother and sister-in-law inside and generally appears to be working against both the Scottish and English, so I feel like I'm missing something. I'm really liking this book, though!

Dracula Daily finally got me hooked into the story enough that I was too impatient to wait for the updates, so now I'm just reading Dracula.

Comments

[kore]

....what I got out of this is I need that Miss Pym book pronto.

Dracula!! ....well except when it gets to the later (SPOILER SPOILER) bits

[stranger]

I'm not entirely sure one is supposed to be rooting for Lymond in the first book, although the ending is (I think) supposed to tend that way. There's Tragic Past, and More Tragic Past (just in the first book), and Extreme Generational Tragic Past if you stick around through the sixth book. In retrospect, Lymond is certainly doing his best to piss everybody off in every possible way, along with maybe redeeming himself, or not bothering to redeem himself, or something. Conflicted, that's it! He's conflicted, but complex, and fun to watch if you aren't invested in taking sides. The show he puts on is terrific.

This corresponds with Wimsey in that Peter is certainly performing his social persona, sometimes on several levels and often for detective or other purposes, and he isn't above grand emotional gestures, but the scale is less insanely grandiose. Peter is, after all, a proper Englishman, and Lymond is a wild and wily Scot.

[castiron]

I never had the Lymond love that so many Dunnett readers have; he's one of these people who I only end up rooting for because especially as the series goes on, the people he's up against are so much worse. But he's certainly a compelling character.

Also, my general PSA about the Lymond Chronicles is to not read Pawn in Frankincense if you have a blond toddler in your household. Learn from my mistakes.

[sovay]

and it's just *chef's kiss* so pyrrhic.

This is the exact reason I have never read the novel despite liking quite a lot of other Tey, because I find that kind of tragedy excruciating, but I am unironically glad that you loved it!

I read Dracula for a class in college and honestly had a wonderful time.

[lunabee34]

I thoroughly enjoy Dracula. And there's a fair amount of good fic too if that's your jam.

[chestnut_pod]

The one and only Dunnett I've read is King Hereafter, but I have to say, it sounds like your experience of Lymond-protagonist is pretty similar to my experience of Thorfinn/Macbeth-protagonist!

[regshoe]

I loved Miss Pym Disposes, especially the setting and doubly-especially the final twist! I totally agree about Innes and Nash.

[whimsyful]

Cat Among the Pigeons was really fun! I really liked the Plucky Schoolgirl Who Gets Caught Up in International Intrigue and kinda wish she met Hilary Thorpe from the Wimsey books.

Ohohoho you're reading Lymond! I find him best in small doses, and kind of overbearing when the Grand Melodrama/Great Tragedy really kicks into high gear in the later books. But the books are very fun and super iddy, and you really do see where Dunnett was influenced by Peter Wimsey as it goes on.

[skygiants]

Oh, I'm so looking forward to your thoughts on Lymond! (Dunnett's favorite schtick is having Lymond do a lot of presumably-unforgiveable and/or inexplicable things as seen through outsider POV and then doing Grand Reveals of His True Motivations; very King of Attolia but much more over-the-top and it takes much longer to bring the reader in on the joke.)