The Kinsey Millhone series continues apace in P Is for Peril, where Sue Grafton’s Californian PI finds herself in novel territory on several fronts whilst investigating the disappearance of a doctor/manager of a local nursing home, which is also under investigation for financial irregularities. The the novelty of finding new office space which in turn leads to the novelty of a charming young love interest (albeit one that turns out to be the Peril of the title). And the final, subtly delivered plot twist both surprised and pleased me – rather more “modern” than I’d expect from Sue Grafton in Kinsey Millhone mode.
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A bit disappointing this one, especially as I walked straight into the spoiler resulting from the previous instalment in Aurelio Zen’s career and life.
I won’t do the same to you, dear reader!
Suffice it to say, that this novel lacked the strong characters that have populated Aurelio Zen’s world to date, and Michael Dibdin seems to have taken the decision to remove a lot of the familiar background characters from the scene, leaving Zen befreft of context, whilst at the same time – most bizarrely – providing him with a love interest and an interest in love that seem to have appeared out of thin air.
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Back to form in this next “letter of the alphabet” tale from Sue Grafton concerning Californian private investigator, Kinsey Millhone. Grafton manages subtly to introduce us to Kinsey’s first husband, and by so doing allows her heroine to tells us more about her earlier life, and its police force context. Very subtly done, in contrast to earlier attempts to provide such insights via the long lost relatives route.
The only bit of the book I didn’t like was Sue Grafton’s note at the start, telling us when the various episodes detailed in the alphabet books take place – essentially placing all of the books to date in the 1980s – and thereby justifying the absence of mobile phones and the internet. Surely Sue Grafton could have provided us with plot-based pointers on this front, rather than this school-ma’am-ish elucidation.
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Another gem from Phil’s bookshelf. After bemoaning the books on my “To read” shelf, and failing to get to the Barbican Library to stock up on fresh page-turning fodder, Phil came to the rescue:
Phil: “What do you fancy reading?”
Mary:”I don’t know, something like this [pointing to William Goldman’s Adventures in the screen trade].”
Phil: “You mean like this [holding out Which Lie Did I Tell?: More Adventures in the Screen Trade], his follow-up.”
Thus I found myself back in the world of making movies, US-style, but this time with William Goldman deconstructing scripts, and explaining what works and why, and what doesn’t and why not – not just in his opinion but bringing in comments and analysis from other screen-writers he knows. It’s a small, small world!
And, yes, there are occasional asides, offering Heat-type gossip about stars of the silver screen. Thank heavens for a weekend for reading!
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Having enjoyed the science fiction elements of Cloud Atlas, and not finding anything appealing on the “Books to read” shelf, I turned my attentions to Phil’s collection of William Gibson novels, and picked out Burning Chrome as one I’d not read before.
I’d not realised that it is a collection short stories, written by William Gibson (occasionally in collaboration with others) in the early years of his career. I’d also not realised – until I opened the book to start reading – that the first story is Johnny Mnemonic, the basis for the film of the same name starrring Keanu Reeves in a warm-up to his role in The Matrix.
An enjoyable collection, where you see William Gibson articulating concepts, scenarios and locations that are developed in his later novels. It strikes me that the stories are always told from the perpective of the underdog or the outsider – I can’t think of an occasion where we see Gibson’s vision of the future from the point of view of someone with power, or simply getting along with a “normal” humdrum life.
Hmmm. What next?
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