Hey! I'm in DC! My amazing sister booked me into the hotel that's the headquarters of the conference (unbeknownst to me) and that's right across from the convention center. Plus it's totally swanky, AND I saw three people I know within fifteen minutes of checking in!
On to the books:
Scarlett Thomas' Dead Clever and In Your Face
Scarlett Thomas is one of my favorite authors (Popco was in my top 15 last year, and The End of Mr. Y will be on my top whatever list this year, for sure) but for a long time I didn't realize she was the author of the Lily Pascale mystery trilogy (of which these are the first 2/3). For some reason she seems to keep her genre books away from her literary fiction books--there are no mentions of these on her official site, and the bios in the backs of these note that she's written several novels, including the other two Lily Pascale books. And yet similar elements crop up in both sets of books. Isn't that weird, and worthy of further investigation? Yes, and yes.
But anyway, these two mystery books center on Lily Pascale, who has an MA in contemporary fiction with a specialization in crime fiction. So of course in the first one she ends up teaching at a small college where a grisly murder has just occured, and where more mysterious events suck her in and she solves the whole thing. The first was, I thought, a little weaker--the killer's identity is revealed to the reader too early on. The second was a little scarier and a stronger story in general; in that one, Lily goes to London during a school break after a college friend calls her up begging for help in relation to ore grisly murders.
I think I probably would have read these both in one sitting even if I hadn't been hanging out in airports all day; Thomas is a very engaging writer and I love that so many of her characters are these sort of intellectual types. I know I don't usually go for genre fiction, but Thomas manages to throw in a lot of twists and turns that make things seem less formulaic than some other mysteries I've read. I'm definitely looking forward to the final book in the series--I hope the public library can get it to me soon after I'm back in Florida! Which won't be for a week--I'm off to Pittsburgh after the conference!
PS: IMPORTANT NEWS FOR FELLOW CADBURY'S MINI-EGG LOVERS!
They make a Christmas version! They're round and colored green, white, and red instead of the usual pastels. I got a bag at CVS--they're called "solid milk chocolates with a crispy candy shell". Just in case you can't wait till the Easter candy goes out in January for your fix. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment