Friday morning catch-up...

[alexpgp]

I've been sneaking a page or ten of Sue Grafton's R is for Ricochet at odd moments over the past couple of weeks and find myself now two-thirds of the way through the book, in a strange situation.

Unlike many mystery authors, who try to smack you in the face with some serious action - typically, someone getting killed - within the first couple of pages of a new story, Grafton has woven a tale in which a lot of stuff has been revealed (money laundering, philandering, mind games), but almost nothing has actually happened.

So I'm wondering: Why do I keep turning the pages?

I have some ideas as to why, but if I can definitively answer this question, I think I'll be a lot further along in the writing game.

Cheers...

Comments

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Why do I keep turning the pages?

Suspect because Kinsey Milhone is very likable. From a technical point of view, Grafton writes inelegant mysteries (at least I think so) but she gets the PD status detail right and she's good at characterization. Kind of the book equivalent of comfort food.

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

Inelegant. That goes a long way toward explaining something I couldn't quite put my finger on about Grafton's yarns.

In my case, though - and I don't know, it may be my male perspective as a reader - I sort of stopped paying attention to Kinsey and Henry and Rosie quite a number of stories ago, as their interactions seem pretty set (though with perturbations here and there).

I'm starting to think I'm turning the pages because, in effect, Grafton has done a lot of careful setup to arrange a train wreck for the reader to see, and now that I'm sure it's going to happen, I'm sticking around to see how it happens.

It's almost as if watching it actually happen, and finding out what happens in the aftermath aren't important. Yet.

Cheers...

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Grafton does get the procedural details right -- Santa Barbara in the fog, the whole private detective thing etc.

You like mysteries? Have you ever read Ian Rankin's Rebus novels? I wonder if you'd like those?

My personal favorite of that genre is Ruth Rendell whose mysteries are so strange they might have been written by Borges.

[daphnis.livejournal.com]

If, as a reader, you are anything like my august self, you keep reading because you don't like to leave a generally palatable dish half-eaten? And who knows, you might just uncover the secret ingredient (or three) that keep people coming back for Grafton's concoctions!

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

I don't know. Lately, I've been leaving heaps of books unfinished, sometimes after just a few pages.

Cheers...

P.S. Who's the photographer in your userpic?
P.P.S. And is he/she/it trying to take a self-portrait?

[daphnis.livejournal.com]

We haven't been properly introduced, Monkey and I, but I believe it took its own picture in the course of experimentation. It is trying to figure out what makes that clicking sound when it tromps on a certain projection piece. It looks a lot like me trying to figure out why the computer won't boot or the DSL won't do its thing ~~ a lot of this world is moving far too fast for me to catch up with!

[furzicle.livejournal.com]

Last weekend while driving with my husband and his runner friend Dr. Bill, we began to discuss audio books and books in general. There aren't that many people who actually read, so it was a relatively rare experience to talk in a group about a selection of authors. I found it intriguing that we all agreed about the writing traits of various authors. The guys thought that Evanovich was mind numbing. I said that you had to hear it on CD to appreciate it, especially the character Lula. They hated the main character and I admitted that I had to quit Book #14 half way through because it was so inane. We all like Michael Connelly for his thoughtful and well crafted stories. Grafton was the one we all felt used a lot of filler to make the books longer. I always remember a page in which she went on to describe in unneeded detail the flowers around yet one more porch. GAH.