Monday, 10 April 2023

Some Short Unseasonal Crime Reviews

Christmas is Murder - Val McDermid

This book of Val McDermid's short stories is a bit of a mix. I had ones I really enjoyed - especially the first, with her series detectives, and The Devil's Share. Others crossed the subtle line between chilling enough and a bit too grim for my taste, so although it's made me want to read more, I'm not committing myself too far yet and have only got one McDermid queued up. 

That said the only one I really struggled with was the Sherlock Holmes one, and that was mostly because Watson informs us early on that he has not only married Mrs Hudson but continued to call her that because he's got used to it, and I just couldn't believe in the narrator as Watson from that point. 


Murder in the Falling Snow - Various

This one is a compendium of short stories by different authors - you can probably guess some of them if you know anything about classic crime at all. They're much more the puzzle type of mystery you'd read for entertainment - blood and trauma almost entirely off the page, and you don't find yourself (as you do with some of the McDermid's) sometimes sympathising with the murderer. The lightness suited me - I picked it up on a trip to my brother's with the full intention of putting it in the bookswap when I'd finished, which I will do this week - but it did feel lightweight. 



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