:still reading mysteries:

[jennaria]

Except I've learned from my last picks, and begun using the first-chapter test (read the first chapter, and if you're still interested, continue). I generally don't do that, mostly because I read very fast, but I also don't want another situation of toting home five books, only to find that three of them are pretty much duds. Books are heavy, dammit, and the walk home from the library takes me up a very steep hill. I don't need exercise so badly that I'm going to tote books I don't want to read back and forth over said steep hill.

Have idly been thinking about what it means that I will choose mysteries over other genres these days. Not that I don't love a good romance, or fantasy, or SF, but given the choice, I gravitate toward mysteries. I keep remembering something I read once, that said that 'mystery is the most conservative of genres.' Something has disturbed the status quo, and the detective is trying to set it right. Sometimes they don't succeed, but those tend to feel like they're cheating somehow, at least to me. If I want to read about a world where life isn't fair and the wicked flourish as the green bay tree, I can read the paper.

Also also, any time the writers of the cover copy for mystery novels with a feminine detective want to stop automatically comparing said female detective to Miss Marple, I am totally down with that. They don't compare every male detective to Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot after all. Hmph.

Comments

[stranger]

Hmmm, lesbian detective novels are seldom advertised as similar to Miss Marple's adventures, for some reason. The detective is usually youngish (comparatively -- 20s-30s) and not a habitue of country-house tea parties. They tend toward a more dystopic world view than classic mysteries, however, and may fail a "life is fair and the wicked are punished" litmus test.

[jennaria]

One of the novels I picked up last time had an AI as the detective, and the cover copy compared 'her' to Miss Marple. Which was when I threw up my hands and had to rant to DW/LJ, because honestly!

With lesbian detective novels -- I suspect I might run into the same problem I've already seen elsewhere, namely where the stress gets laid. If it's more about the lesbian than the detection, then it's really kind of 'gay fiction,' and I'd expect the dystopic world view (and be pleasantly surprised if it didn't evince itself). I've already encountered more than one mystery (mystery series, even) where it's less an actual mystery and more 'women's fiction,' with a murder mystery plot overlay.

[stranger]

Was that the "Came in a Flash/in Drag/etc" series? I kept trying to like it, and for what it's worth, the milieu wasn't far from what I saw in women's arts/clubs/bars in the 70s, only ballsier. But, um, I liked fandom better and happily abandoned places where the women were lesbians and usually weren't fans, for places where the women were fans and at least half were on the lesbians/bi/queer/friendly'n'straight continuum.

I remember comparing female-detective fiction between the hard-boiled straight 'tec and the hard-boiled gay 'tec, and coming up with the theory that as long as a woman didn't at least look
like a traditional feminine woman, she was an outsider and both would be treated about the same.

[jennaria]

No, the AI series is by Donna Andrews and begins with YOU'VE GOT MURDER. I saw at least two more with the same detective, but inasmuch as I'm trying to do something vaguely resembling a survey, I'm avoiding repeats until after Blogathon.

Female detective fiction...I'm actually tempted to go check the male-authored stuff, because it seems like there's a much higher percentage of male detectives who are legitimately involved in cases (as either a cop or a private detective), whereas the women are much more likely to be either trying to clear their own name/a good friend's name, or just being nosy. Not to mention the inexplicable proliferation of cutesy, 'look! we have recipes!' sort of mysteries.

[stranger]

I've mostly ignored the mysteries with recipes, which appear to be an 00's fad. Before that it was mysteries with cats, and while I adore cats, I think they're only moderately good detectives. And it helps if the perp is a fish or rodent.

Have you seen a series by Barbara Paul, featuring Marion Larch? Very non-cutsey, female police detective lead, etc. Warning: some gore and lots of mean streets.