[AuntiePam]

Whitebelly, thanks, I found it used at Amazon, and while I was there I picked up the first Fandorin book.

I need to stop coming here until I get caught up. !!! :)

[FicusFan]

Leon features prominently on the crime shelves here, yes. I also prefer to read crime series in the right chronological order – even if the books can be read as stand-alones – because I am as much interested in the development of the main characters (is there a tiny soap addict in every person?) as in the crime story itself. I have a weakness for older, cynical(ish) chief detectives (or similar) whose private lives are non-existant and/or a mess, social misfits and outsiders who are, somehow, brilliant crime solvers. In other words: Anything from Sherlock Holmes to Kurt Wallander. So, is Leon’s detective my type of guy or girl? :p




I can't say about Leon. Her POV character is a middle aged man who feels trapped by his job - because often the powers that be and the ways of the world prevent him from completing his investigations, but he becomes hooked by the sense of denied justice and he must go on to the end. So he is not really cynical, though he does know and understand how the world works. He is the type that will push on through even if there is no way to win, or even if he has to disguise what he is doing from his boss. He does not always win, and the criminal is not always caught.

His family life isn't a large part of the story, but it is there and it forms a nice counterpoint. His wife is a very loving and supportive, they seem to have a good relationship. She is a college professor in the humanities I think, so she is full of her own wars at work. She is also the daughter of an aristocrat so he married above his station, but she is very down to earth, and not at all part of that group. You have to love a character that refers to George Bush as the 'Appointed President'.

His 2 children are just becoming teenagers and so he is relishing the remaining family time before they run off in their own directions. Besides thinking about the horrors from the job that could happen to them, he is worried about losing touch, and what kind of people they will turn out to be, and what kind of world they will end up with. He also has a brother who has done better than he has financially and a mother who may have Alzheimers and is in a nursing home. All in all they seem like real people more than characters in a book.

At work he likes those who try to do a good job, and try to get better at what they do. He tries to work with those types on cases, even when his boss thinks they are not appropriate. He has a stupid, arrogant, social climbing boss whom he has to work around. The boss has a 'spearcarrier' who came into the Venice force with him and he is just evil. He encourages others to be lazy, venal and downright criminal. There is a mysterious secretary to the boss who is his friend and she knows magical things like how to make the budget provide huge bouquets of flowers twice a week, new computers, how to use a computer, and how to find things, people and answers.

You also get nice descriptions of Venice and how things work in Italy, and the mysteries so far have been ok. But I don't really read mysteries for that purpose. I am more concerned with the characters and the settings.

So you will have to be the judge, but you might want to give one a whirl.

[FicusFan]

Ok I have read two more mysteries over the past holiday break. Another by Donna Leon: Death at La Fenice. It turns out to be the first in the Commissario Guido Brunetti mysteries. It was published here back in the 90's by a different publisher than the one that is publishing her books here now. So now I have read: #1, #7, #12, and am waiting for #13 to go into paper.

I also dug out my copy of The Athenian Murders and I read that. I have to say I was very underwhelmed. I found nothing really interested me in terms of story, setting and characters. I thought the writing was choppy and it never hooked me (which could be the translator's problem and not the author's).

I found the use of the translator character an annoying distraction, and one that has already been done: Mary Gentle, The Secret History of Ash. I have really no interest in reading a book for the literary gimmick. For me it stands or falls based on the ability of the author to enthrall me with something. I kept reading in hopes that I would get to the 'good ' part but for me it never really came. Perhaps I am just not interested in philosophy, because it never made me think about the bigger issues that others claim it addresses.

I am not saying it was awful, but on many levels it just didn't work for me.

[AuntiePam]

I just wanted to thank Whitebelly for recommending The Winter Queen. I liked everything about it -- the characters, the settings, the plot -- it was just detailed enough to be interesting.

As I was reading, I thought "Doesn't Akunin know how to write a dull sentence?" I can't think of the last time I read a book where each sentence was an invitation to read the next one. Great stuff.

I'll be looking for more of them.

[whitebelly]

Hmmm, another reason for sending Dear Mr. Akounin a cheque for my endless PR-ing ;)

No seriously, very glad you liked it!

Actually "The Winter Queen" is, in my humble opinion, the least impressive Akounin book (by which I mean: the others are even much much better). I agree that he doesn't now how to write a dull sentence, but I thought the 'solution' to the mystery not very original in TWQ. Though I tip my hat to what he dares to do at the very very end ... and this is crucial for understanding all the other books. Fandorin really changes after that.

Sadly (for you at least), a lot of his books haven't yet been translated into English, though I think this is going to change very soon. "Leviathan" (or "Murder on the Leviathan") is my favourite and has been translated into English very recently. It was incredibly clever, extremely well and wittily written, and wildly funny in an intelligent way. Read read read!

I am waiting for my partner to arrive on a night train from Poland, and as I usually don't sleep (or at least not very well) on those occasions, I'll spend most of the evening and probably night with "The White Russian" by Tom Bradby, a thriller in St Petersburg in 1917. Looks extremely promising!

[whitebelly]

Oops ... Mary Gentle uses the same device? I once started "Ash" but somehow couldn't finish, though this had more to do with the circumstances than with the book. I agree the writing wasn't anything special, but I liked the (for me) very original plot.

[AuntiePam]

Leviathan is the third book. Can I read it without reading the second one?

I want a certain person to get his/her comeuppance, and if it happens in the second book, I don't want to skip over it and go on to a whole different story.

[whitebelly]

Good question ... the trouble is I can't remember rofl.

But I am (pretty) sure you can read Leviathan as a stand-alone, where no characters from previous books get any comeuppances :)

PS now that I think of it: I don't think that person (I hope we are talking of the same one) gets his/her comeuppance altogether. Not at least in any of the books I've read, and I think I've read the first five or six, though I have to admit I am not sure the Dutch chronology is the same as the Russian one, or they skipped some books too. I do remember that book 2 (Turkish Gambit) and 4 (The Death of Achilles) are related, and best read in the right order.

[FicusFan]

I will throw out a mystery series that I enjoy, Stephanie Plum by Janet Evanovich. It is very light, and extremely funny. There are 10 regular books out and one Christmas book. The 10th is still in hardcover so I am waiting for it to go into paper, but I am just finishing up the 9th. The books are names with numbers, the first is One for the Money.

There is a mystery and some adventure and some romance in each story. Stephanie is a 'Jersey' girl who lives and operates in a section of Trenton called the the 'Burg'. She was a lingerie buyer until she was laid off and then she blackmailed her sleezy married cousin Vinnie (he has sex with farm animals) into hiring her as a Bond Enforcement Officer (Bounty Hunter). She is clueless and inept, though good hearted, and still manages to come out on top due to blind luck. Of course she leaves a trail of devestation in her path (exploding cars among other things). But she is still in training compared to the havoc her 80 year old grandmother creates at the local funeral home - where viewings are the 'in' social gatherings. Books 1-3 are hysterical, 4-6 are less funny, but she has freshened up in books 7-9. The series is a funny, light enjoyable romp when you want something easy on the brain and good for the funny bone.

[minibirte]

If you like Henning Mankell you might like Hakan Nesser. I don't know whether he's been translated into English though.

I really like to read everything by Dick Francis. He is a British murder mystery author and all his books are set in the hors racing community. Even though I don't care for horses at all, they usually are very gripping.