Illiterarty.com Book reviews and blogs by Bridget

Y'know how all my book reviews start with "y'know how?" Y'know how I recently accused Chuck Pahlaniuk of writing a novel that oversold its blurb.. y'know?

Far more satisfying than my last Agatha Christie experience; this collection of short stories, originally published in 1948 (obviously seven years did wonders for her), delves into the supernatural, the mysterious, the psychological, the criminal, and the downright strange.

The second of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes novellas, The Sign Of Four (originally published in 1890), is less with the long-winded-Sherlock-Holmes-single-minded-genius and more with the getting-to-know-the-many-facets-of-Sherlock-Holmes, beginning with his penchant for injecting cocaine to relieve boredom and smattered with his airy ability to quote philosophers in a multitude of languages (happily ignoring the fact that in the previous story, Holmes had no interest in philosophy). The new Sherlock Holmes is certainly an improvement, though.

A Study In Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was originally published in 1887, and it's still around, reprinted as recently as 2004. Sherlock Holmes sure has stood the test of time, and A Study In Scarlet is one of his most well known stories - probably because it's the world's introduction to the illustrious Sherlock Holmes, and documents his meeting with Watson and their first mystery together, and also because it's a bit longer and more detailed than Doyle's later stories.

I was pleasantly surprised by The Return Of The Dancing Master. I guess from the cover I was expecting a pulp thriller of the most noxious and basic kind, with a name selected for whimsy and to sucker in people like me. What I DIDN’T look at was the author’s name... Henning Mankell. Turns out he’s Swedish. Who knew? Anyway, more to the point, the book was actually originally written in Swedish, and then translated into English. Which gives the whole experience less of a thriller feeling and more of a smugly-reading-foreign-text feeling. Which was nice.

When a man has lived the way Easy Rawlins has—flirting with the wrong side of the law his whole life (or at least in the six previous Easy Rawlins books)—it’s time for him to settle down. He has responsibilities: Bonnie, his beautiful girlfriend. Jesus and Feather, his adopted kids. Even Frenchie, Feather’s little yellow dog who hates him, is a kind of responsibility. He has a good job and a good home and his best friend’s death on his conscience. And... Walter Mosley’s done it again.

Apparently this little gem is the twelfth book in the Grijpstra and DeGrier Mystery series (I can just manage to pronounce DeGrier, but I can’t even begin to vocalise Grijpstra), which follows two Dutch detectives going about their business in a manner that is extremely read-worthy. Just A Corpse At Twilight is well written with a decent plot and manages to convey the constant message that it isn’t just another murder mystery police novel. And if all this hasn’t convinced you, the back flap of the book jacket contains a photo of the writer, and one look at him should convince you that this will be an interesting read indeed.