I have to just face it. Every author isn’t for every reader. I’ve tried Elly Griffiths’ Ruth Galloway mysteries. I read one of the Magic Men ones, and I was quite hopeful for that book. When I finished The Postscript Murders, I realized I was much more excited about the idea of the book than I was about the book itself. While I liked the diverse cast of characters, I felt the story dragged.
When ninety-year-old Peggy Smith dies, everyone assumes it’s a natural death, everyone except the woman paid to stop in daily and care for her. Natalka admired Peggy, who kept a notebook of everything going on from the view from her window. When she finds a card that says, “Mrs. M. Smith, Murder Consultant”, she takes her suspicions to the police.
Detective Sergeant Harbinder Kaur is reluctant to open an investigation into the death of a ninety-year-old woman. But, she does go to the funeral service where she meets Edwin, one of Peggy’s neighbors, and Benedict, a former monk who owns a coffee shack, and admires Natalka. It’s that trio who drags Kaur into an investigation after they find a number of mysteries dedicated to PS, with thanks, and a postcard that says “We’re coming for you.” When Natalka and Benedict are in Peggy’s apartment sorting through boxes, a gunman arrives, takes one of the books, and leaves. What kind of killer or gunman steals a book?
As the small quartet gets more involved, they learn a few authors who knew Peggy, and appreciated her suggesions for murder methods, have also received that postcard, “We’re coming for you.” The amateur trio spend time tracking down the authors, but after the murder of one, they chase after two others who are attending a mystery convention in Aberdeen. Harbinder Kaur is appalled, and even more so when she receives a call from the Aberdeen police saying another author is dead.
While I liked the quartet of sleuths, the three amateurs and Kaur, I dragged myself through the book. I was more impressed by some of the conversations in the book than I was by the mystery itself. Peggy’s obnoxious son, Nigel asks, “Why did she read all those crime novels? I mean she was a clever woman.” “Don’t clever people read crime novels?” The man who was the literary agent for several of the authors talked about his enormous piles of books. “To be read. If I’m ever killed, my TBR pile will be the murder weapon.”
There’s a wonderful, diverse cast in the book. Harbinder Kaur is a thirty-five-year-old gay police officer who lives with her parents from India. Natalka is a Ukrainian immigrant with a fascinating background. Edwin is a gay retiree. Benedict is a former monk. However, the cast just can’t carry the entire book when the story drags.
I know there are others who will love this book. I much preferred Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club for a group of amateur sleuths on the hunt for a killer.
Elly Griffiths’ website is https://ellygriffiths.co.uk/
The Postscript Murders by Elly Griffiths. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021. ISBN 9780358418610 (hardcover), 336p.
FTC Full Disclosure – I received a .PDF to review for a journal.
I’ve had that happen myself more than once. Sometimes the characters are what I don’t like, sometimes it’s the story, and sometimes, if I’m the wrong mood, one sentence can completely turn me off a book.
Luckily, there’s plenty of books in the library and more are published all the time.
I was talking about this with my friend, David. We both wanted to like Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain. The author lost me in the first chapter. You’re right, Glen.
Yes! COLD MOUNTAIN was absolutely one of those books for me (see comment below) too. Also THE NAME OF THE ROSE.
I think people must have bought Cold Mountain, and lied about reading it, Jeff. I do know a couple people who really loved it, though.
Morning Lesa!
I bought the first Ruth Galloway for my mother, as she’s always looking for good crime novels and I had run out of ideas. I’d seen so many good reviews for these books, but I’m sorry to say this was another failure! So it’s not just you.
My mother does not like cosies. CJ Tudor!s The Chalk Man (which, as with the Ruth Galloway series, I’ve not read) was apparently ‘too tame’
Other authors she does not like:
Alastair McCall Smith (liked the ladies’ detective agency books, but loathed the Scotland Street ones);
PD James (too posh and too much church);
Ruth Rendell (can’t remember why);
Neil Rankin (ditto – probably‘too Scottish 😀)
GM Malliet
John Le Carre
Amanda Cross
Peter May
So I’m now a bit stuck and any suggestions that might fit her requirements are most welcome. Books she *does* like include:
Donna Leon’s Inspector Brunetti series Louise Penny’s Three Pines series
Robert Goddard
She also likes (some) historical mysteries. She read all the Ellis Peters Caedfel (?) books years ago.
Please feel free, all readers, to share your ideas! (Preferably of books that should be available in the UK.)
And sorry Lesa, this has gone off at a complete tangent – feel free to delete!
Never, Rosemary! That’s why we’re here, to talk about books. I’m hoping this series is available in the U.K. Has she tried Jeffrey Siger’s Inspector Andreas Kaldis series. It’s set in Greece. The first one is Murder in Mykonos. David P. Wagner’s Rick Montoya series, set in Italy, is set all around the country. Cold Tuscan Stone is the first one.
Keep us posted!
Yes to the Siger series. What about Kate Ellis’s Wesley Peterson series, set in the West Country and with a historical tie-in in every book? Or she could try the Andrea Camilleri series about Insp. Montalbano set in Sicily.
I agree with her about the McCall Smith series. I couldn’t read the Edinburgh series at all, as much as I wanted to like it and as much as I’ve enjoyed the Ladies Detective Agency books.
Oh, Kate Ellis’ Wesley Peterson series is a great suggestion. Love those books!
Lesa, I think you have hit on a profound truth here – “I was much more excited about the idea of the book than the book itself.”
So true! At least it has been true for me too many times. I have Griffiths’ first Ruth Galloway book on the shelf, but so far have not been able to get into it. An aside – I spoke with her at the Raleigh Bouchercon in 2015 and found her very nice. And I love her handwriting when she inscribed the book for me. Now I feel guilty all over again!
Other authors I like “the idea of” more than the actual books – Tana French (way too dark, also too long), John Lawton (love the premise, have not been able to get into the books), Stephen Booth (too long, didn’t grab me), Alan Furst (I have A DOZEN of his spy novels on the shelf – read? none).
Maybe it’s me.
I understand Ellie Griffiths is very nice. My friend, Kathy Boone Reel, loves her. Jeff, it’s you for those particular books. But, look at how many others you read and love, or at least enjoy. Thank you for my “profound truth”. I’m glad to know it’s just not me.
Thanks Lesa!
I’ll get one of those for her and see what she says.
And Jeff, I also struggled with and gave up on The Name of the Rose, which I ‘liked the idea of’. Also Donna Tartt The Secret History (most annoying characters ever), and Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow, and Snow Falling on Cedars. Maybe I just wasn’t in the mood for snow. Or roses.
Rosemary
Yes. I agree on all three of them! In the U.S. it was called Smilla’s Sense of Snow, I think. I have friends who loved the Donna Tartt, but I’m not one of them.
Thanks Jeff – it’s a relief to know I’m not alone!
Thanks Jeff, I’ll also look into those. She is quite familiar with the West Country so that might work.
I think the Scotland Street series maybe only really work for people who live in Edinburgh, as they feature characters who are very much caricatures of certain types of residents – maybe especially Irene with her helicopter parenting and her floatarium visits. Stockbridge (a now very yummy mummy area and indeed the home of a real floatarium) is absolutely full of people like her. These days they all have matching bobble hats, babies in papooses, dachshunds with pink collars and tartan coats, and all the other markers of that group.
However, one of my own daughters went to the Edinburgh Steiner School and loved it, so I did start to get riled at the way the author ridiculed it non-stop. It is definitely quirky but it has many good points – and I note that he falls over himself to sing the praises of St George’s, the city’s smart & expensive private school for girls – where by pure coincidence his daughters were educated. St George’s is no more all good than Steiner is all bad.
I got bored with Scotland Street in the end – especially the endless name-dropping and the rather odd poems at the end of each book. But it was fun at first, and i did like Cyril (the dog). The series he set in London – Corduroy Mansions – was in my opinion much less successful, perhaps because he is not so familiar with London, or maybe because London is just too to satirise.
Thanks for your help!
Oh, this is fun, Rosemary. I’m so glad Jeff chimed in. I hope you do find Kate Ellis so she can try those. Actually, I know those books are easier to find in the U.K. than here. I’ve bought some from the U.K.
Thanks Lesa! I have already found the Kate Ellis ones and have put it into my ‘basket’ (I’d better not say where…)
This is great – keep them coming both of you!
ROSEMARY: Chiming in late, but has your mother read ANTHONY PRICE?
He is a UK author who wrote a series in the 1970s/1980s. They are espionage thrillers but focus on military history and WWII. One book won the UK Dagger award but he is mostly forgotten. I have all his books on my bookshelf.
https://www.mysteryscenemag.com/blog-article/4611-anthony-price-a-writer-to-remember
LESA: Hmmm, I thought I was the only one who could not get into any of the ELLY GRIFFITHS books.
I tried some Ruth Galloway books and they were just ok, and I stopped after the first two.
I know the STRANGER DIARIES was nominated/won a bunch of awards, but I actually hated it.
I met Elly at the St. Pete Bouchercon. She was super nice but I could not get enthused about her books..
I met her at that Bouchercon as well, Grace. Isn’t it nice to know you’re not the only one who don’t care for the books?
Lesa, I have tried reading 5 or 6 books of her books, and none of them clicked/worked for me. It happens.
Thank you Grace – I will look up Anthony Price, I have not heard of him.
Lesa, I so appreciate you mentioning me as one of Elly Griffiths’ most ardent fans. I simply love everything she writes. Of course, my first and dearest love is her Ruth Galloway series. It does sting a bit that there are readers here who don’t enjoy her books, but I find comfort in knowing that most of the readers I’ve introduced Elly to have become fans, too. And, Elly (or Domenica, her real lname) and I just absolutely hit it off the first time we met.
I do realize that not all authors are for all people, and how lucky we readers of mystery/crime are that we have such a large number of great authors from which to choose. I don’t normally talk about or name authors I don’t enjoy, but I will say that Donna Tart was not my cup of tea. I felt The Goldfinch was about 200 pages too long, and the book Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn is another popular book that left me flat. So, while it’s hard for those of us who love an author’s work to understand others who don’t, we all have authors who don’t quite gel with us.
I hated GONE GIRL! I know I’m a bit of a snob about it, but I’ve been reading mysteries for over 50 years and I sold them for 25 or so, so when someone who reads a few books a year touts something as fabulous I am skeptical – Gone Girl or most of the other recent “unreliable narrator” books mostly included.
Gone Girl, Girl on a Train, etc. Right there with you, Jeff. I’m not a fan of “unreliable narrator” books, either.I’ve never found you a snob about mysteries. Maybe you’re just not commenting here. But, I see a lot of mysteries that you do enjoy, Jeff.
I know. But, as a librarian I’ve learned to accept it when other readers don’t care for my favorite authors. Right there with you on Gone Girl, though.
Kathy, I know what you mean about it ‘stinging a bit’ when someone does not appreciate one of your favourite authors – I admit that I am a tiny bit upset when someone who I thought would like my beloved Barbara Pym clearly doesn’t, even though I know she’s not for everyone. I think it’s partly that I then question how well I really know the person I thought would like her!
And I’ve lost count of the number of books I’ve passed on to my mother that have been ‘fails’! For example I thought she would like Vere Hodgson’s ‘Few Eggs and No Oranges’, which was republished by Persephone and is (IMO) a wonderful diary of the author’s experiences of living through the blitz in London. My mother was a child in London at that time, but apparently she took against poor Vere because she occasionally mentions that she had to go and lie down after an air raid (she was working throughout the war) – my mother thought she was ‘pathetic’ amd didn’t have enough backbone!!! So you really never know what will put someone off.
Lesa & Jeff: I have never had any inclination to read any of those unrelieable narrator books. And I agree about recommendations – I recently followed a Facebook group that I thought was for all readers, but although it has a huge number of followers and they are all very friendly, the only books they ever seem to read/recommend are brand new Top Ten bestsellers. I have no idea what ‘When the Crawdads Sing’ is about, and it’s probably a brilliant book, but if I see one more person say ‘the tears were pouring down my face as I read it’ I will have to leave the group. I don’t think I have ever cried while reading a book since I was a child (I can even remember the book – it was either ‘What Katy Did’ or one of the sequels), which no doubt makes me very hard-hearted, but I wish people would discuss the story rather than just tell me how emotional they are. There – I too am a book snob. But I am more than happy to read ‘easy’ books – Debbie Macomber, Erica James, Cathy Kelly, etc – from time to time, I like a varied diet.
The other thing I find frustrating with this FB group is that people are forever posting things like ‘Can anyone recommend a good book?’ – with no hints as to what they like or even what genre they want to read. Well, like everyone on here I could recommend several hundred, but I’m sure 99% of them would not be what was required!
All of which just goes to show, dear Lesa, how much I value your blog and how much better the standard of discussion is on here. I’ve discovered so many great authors through your reviews and other people’s comments.
I’ve also upset someone on another book site by saying – in what I *thought* was a polite manner – that I personally had not enjoyed the TV adaptation of ‘The Dig’. I qualified this by saying that I was sure I simply had not been in the right mood, that I knew just about everyone else thought it brilliant, and that I should watch it again another time. Unfortunately this was not good enough, and the wrath of God descended upon me. Oh well! Maybe the person was having a bad day – I’m sure we are all having those from time to time at the moment. (I talked to my youngest daughter about ‘The Dig’ – a friend of hers had recommended it to her, so madelene had asked her what the story was – ‘Well they dig. And then they dig some more…’ [I do know what it is actually about btw, but I did think this was funny.])
Thanks again everyone for all the recommendations, much appreciated, and the door is still open!
I love that description of The Dig, Rosemary! Good one. Well, I have a book coming up to review that neither you nor your mother will like, but I sobbed (smile). It’s The Last Bookshop in London, and she won’t be happy with the blitz scenes, and you won’t be happy that I cried. But, I do cry over books. However, it doesn’t bother me that you don’t. I don’t take it personally. (snicker)
I’m sure your mother at least tried Reginald HIll’s Dalziel and Pascoe books, didn’t she? I liked those. My all-time favorite police procedural series was Dorothy Simpson’s Luke Thanet series, but probably a little too cozy for your mother.
I’ll continue to think about authors.
Haha Lesa – I wasn’t trying to have a go at people who cry over books, just the ones who think all a review needs to say is ‘I cried buckets, lol’ or something like that. You, of course, always tell us all about the actual story – crying is optional!
Thanks again to you and everyone else who is providing all these great suggestions – I should have asked on here before!
I don’t know if my mother has tried the Dalziel and Pasco books – I’ve certainly heard them recommended by many people. I’ll have a look. Were they not also made into a TV series, or am I thinking of something else?
Yes, when I was looking up the books (because I could only remember Daziel), I saw they were made into a TV series. You’re right.
Oh, I know you weren’t. I do try to tell you what moves me in a book, unless it’s a spoiler.
I have a few suggestions:
Inspector Banks series by Peter Robinson
Ann Cleeves – she has a couple of different series but all are set in the Shetlands, northern Scotland
Deborah Crombie – American, but her series is set in England – Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James – both Scotland Yard detectives
Mistress of the Art of Death – first book in the series title and the same name of the series by Ariana Franklin – just wonderful. In the 1100’s and Adelia is a physcian – very gritty and believable characters.
Hope these help.
Donna
Thanks, Donna. I’ll remind Rosemary to go back and look for more suggestions. Thank you!
ROSEMARY:
I found this nice list of British historical mystery series organised by time periods, I recognize a lot of names but I don’t read many historicals so I can’t recommend any specific ones.
https://www.nypl.org/blog/2020/04/24/historical-mystery-series
Another UK police procedural series I liked was by BARRY MAITLAND (DCI Brock and DS Kolla)..
That is a great list, thank you so much – I can already see some series on there that might be just what she likes.
Oh, me too Lesa. I read the summary of this new Ellen Griffiths book and thought “this sounds good”. Then I realized I had already read one in the Ruth Galloway series and thought it tedious. Very popular though.
Spellcheck! I did type “Elly” but got a substitute instead.
Yes, I think I’m going to move on, MM. I did give her books a chance since I read some in three different series.
DONNA – thank you so much for these suggestions, I will look into them. I love Vera and Shetland on TV (both based on Ann Cleeves’ books) but I know my mother doesn’t watch Vera for some reason. I have never heard of Ariana Franklin, but it sounds as though she might very well write my mother’s kind of books. And I think I might even have some of the Peter Robinson books somewhere (unread, of course…) so I will look those out. I have heard of Deborah Crombie, but not read any and I’m not sure that I knew she set her books in England, so that’s another author for me to look into. Thanks again.
Isn’t this site just wonderful?!
Rosemary, Deborah Crombie now lives in Texas, but her books are set in England. She was married to a Brit and lived in England for a while, so, hopefully, they’ll ring true to you.
And, thank you. (smile)