Mysteries, Racism, and MLK Day

Do any mysteries revolve around a theme suitable for MLK Day? I'm not sure.

Chiefs (Stuart Woods) traces a crime through 3 generations of police chiefs in a small Georgia town. One factor is the evolving race relations. By the end of the book, An African-American chief solves the series of murders that goes back some forty years.

I have always enjoyed the Easy Rawlins character created by Walter Moseley. There are many things that come together to make the Moseley books a great series: plot, characterization, great dialog. But it's hard to find a lot of books that provide insight into the challenges of urban African Americans in the Civil Rights era (1945-1970ish) as you get from following the life of Rawlins and his friends.

Like many, I never read John Ball's In the Heat of the Night (1965) but remember the movie. The book one an Edgar for first mystery, and was strong on theme of racial tension.

A ten year old article describes "a crowded list of black protagonists who solve crimes in detective stories and novels penned by African-American writers." I am not familiar with these books. This should be a good start into some new and different writers.

As usual, the "Stop You're Killing Me" site is great for lists: For example all of the African-American sleuths featured in mystery fiction.

I found an interesting study of both positive and negative stereotyping in mysteries of the 1940s and earlier.

I do not believe that every black author necessarily will result in a book with insights into the issues of racism and civil rights in our society; however I'm not well read enough to say for sure. In looking up various books, I found one for my "must read" list: A Rage in Harlem, (1957) by Chester Himes. You can get the idea from Amazon readers and others.

China Trade - Fun plot, easy read

China Trade was a mixed bag for me, but on balance, I like it and will probably read one or two more from the series. This book was selected because Rozan won an Edgar for a book later in her series, and this time we went for the book that started the adventures of the sleuth. The Edgar winner was Winter and Night (2002), and it’s the eighth book in the series. I enjoyed China Trade well enough to read Winter and Night and possibly a few others in the series.

A lot of books start with, “given the way it all turned out” where the author gives a big hint and I typically enjoy the author, through the first person comment, sharing with us that way. Along with that I like the self-deprecating comments, usually humorous, about herself (the Chinese-American PI, Lydia). Examples in chapter 1 – “My family all thinks it [I’m going to screw up].” “My hair, when it turns, will probably go messily grey.” Etc

For the most part, I liked the dialog. Just as I have said many times how much I like Spenser’s witticisms, and I found the dialog here pretty entertaining. I have to admit though, sometimes the dialog between Lydia and her boyfriend Bill got repetitive and strained. The overall feel in their relationship reminded me of Nick and Nora of The Thin Man a little more than a Susan (Silverman) and Spenser relationship. It will be interesting to see if Rozan can fill out the personality of Bill a bit better in future stories.

I like suspense in a book, but this was not a thriller and does not pretend to be. It is a PI / who-dunnit type story and, at that, it does quite well. There are some surprises and the many twists and turns are tied up extremely well at the end, which led me to give a high rating on our chart for that aspect.

The setting was done quite well, though not as well as some where the mood permeates everything, like the Janissary Tree and Devil in a Blue Dress which we have read previously. Still, the mother-daughter relationship, and many other aspects of the Chinese-American community present an interesting and different environment for a story.

My ratings for the book totaled: 84.5 -- a solid “B.”

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Update - Eight days later.

I just finished reading another SJ Rozan book, Stone Quarry. My respect for Rozan has jumped a thousand-fold.

This book, like China Trade, is told in the first person and features Bill Smith and Lydia Chin. But here is the amazing thing: it is Bill Smith's voice, not Lydia's! And Rozan pulls this off very, very well. You have to read both books to appreciate the difference of style that is required to create a successful first person story from two completely different perspectives. I am truly wowed by what Rozan accomplished. I doubt many could do it.

I admit to the prejudice that female mystery writers cannot create the grit that I tend to like. But Rozan does it in Stone Quarry. The smoking, drinking hard-boiled image is done well. The suspense is up a tad from China Trade.

In my review of China Trade, I suggested that Bill's character is underdeveloped. In this book, Rozan eliminates that critique faster than a car can fall into a quarry. We learn more about his past, his preferences, and his values.

Although this book is also a solid "B," I can say that my interest in reading more of Rozan's books has shot up higher after Stone Quarry.

Changing the due date starting with March book

When I started the blog, and posting the books to read each month, I thought it would be useful to leave a 10-15 day gap between the day that our town library book club finished the book and the date for our online readers to finish the book. I finding that to be a bad idea - mainly because it confuses me! Soooooo... I'm changing that plan. For our online readers, the current book is still due March 10, as posted. However beginning with the next book, Devil in a Blue Dress, the due date will be the 30th of each month. Thanks.

The Book Version or the Movie Version

What do you like best, the movie version of a mystery/thriller or the book version?

I was thinking of the movie versions of books by my favorite authors. Here's some examples:

I love the Easy Rawlins series by Walter Moseley. When Moseley finishes a paragraph you can feel the sub-culture of 1950s LA - I am there! The history is live! So when Devil in a Blue Dress was made into a movie with one of my favorite actors (Denzel Washington), I put it into my VCR with huge anticipation. What a let down! It just couldn't capture it. I wish I could put better words on "it." Is "it" - ambience? flavor? aroma? emotion? stress? I just don't know how Moseley does it but it wasn't in the film. More importantly, I couldn't follow the plot as done on film... and supposedly I already knew it! Nope, the book is better.

I also love Vic Warshawsky, the tough feminist-minded insurance investigator created by Sara Paretsky. I enjoy the realism in the book and the lead character is very believable. The plots are well developed. Extremely fun reads. Then a movie was made with the title "VI Warshawski- Detective in High Heels." My overall impression from the book is that Vic is not exactly a high heels kind of gal-- so right off, you know something is amiss. Then the script plays more like a comic mystery - I assure you that is not the case in the books. The movie was not based on one specific book. As someone on Paretsky's forum states: It "kind of cobbles together some of the stories. It stars Kathleen Turner. It's an ok movie, but doesn't really do justice to Sara's books - a single book made into a movie would be good!" How true.

I could go on, but generally the book is the real deal. Extreme Measures might be an exception. This was a great movie and a great book IMHO.

Here's something I wonder about: Which is more to the point-- ?
(1)People who read a book they like, will spend money to see the movie.OR
(2)People who see a movie they like, will go out and buy the book.

Why the titles for the first six selections??

First of all: I am not pushing any author or book. Period. If I ever get around to writing/publishing something (LOL), I might push that.

These first titles happen to be the ones my (non-virtual) library book club chose to read. (Alluded to in my "welcome" post.) I will be sharing comments about the book from the library discussion group each month. Of course, that will be after the due date for each book.

So why did the library book club choose these books for this year (Sep 07 - Aug 08)? Well, last year, the group deliberately selected books by New England authors. No one in our group had pre-read the books we chose; they simply represented a good assortment of local scenes. Some authors had many books to their credit; some new writers had very few. As the year progressed, we read a number of books that our group absolutely did not enjoy. Although we had hilarious fun pillorying these books, even using them as a helpful measurement of what we did not like, we just did not have much fun with the actual reading of some of these books.

So our group thought we might increase our odds by reading award winning books. Even that is no guarantee. We recently read New England author Thomas Cook's book, The Chatham School Affair, which won the 1997 Edgar Award for best novel. Boy did our group differ in reaction to that book! Several of us REALLY like the book (myself included); others seriously did NOT like the book at all. Our group is well aware that movie-goers often disagree with movie critics, and that may be our experience with Award Winning mystery books. Nevertheless, for this year we have left the local authors theme and gone to the Award Winners theme.

The first six books represent a variety of genres and authors. The awards are not all from the same source (organizations giving awards have their biases too!).

Here are the books and the related awards:

The Lincoln Lawyer (Connelly) - 2006 Macavity Best Novel; 2006 Shamus Best Novel, 2006 Edgar Finalist for Best Novel; 2006 Anthony Finalist for Best Novel.

The James Deans (Coleman) - 2006 Anthony for Best Paperback; 2006 Shamus for Best PI Paperback; 2006 Edgar Finalist for Best Paperback; 2006 Macavity Finalist for Best Novel.

California Girl (Parker) - 2005 Edgar Finalist for Best Novel.

The Virgin of Small Plains (Pickard) - 2007 Finalist for FOUR Awards: Edgar Best Mystery Novel, Agatha Best Novel, Macavity Best Novel, Anthony Best Mystery Novel. Not Part of a Series. (Author has written 16 other novels, divided into 3 series. She has won 3 other Agatha Awards.)

Paranoia (Finder) - Actually it was his book Killer Instinct that won the 2007 Thrillerwriter Award for Best Novel.

Devil in A Blue Dress (Moseley) - Actually he won the Shamus Award for Cinnamon Kiss, the most recent in the series with the Easy Rawlins character. However Devil in a Blue Dress was the first in the series (also made into a movie) and quite good. (Yep I have read most of these.)

The Janissary Tree (Goodwin) - 2007 Edgar Award for Best Mystery Novel, Finalist 2007 Macavity Award for Best Novel