Dark Road to Darjeeling by Deanna Raybourn was my pick of the week this week. A fairly formulaic Victorian mystery starring Raybourn's characters Lady Julia Grey and her new husband Nick Brisbane.
Nick is the quintessential British detective, a slightly darker and more insouciant Holmes. Julia asks all the right questions, but doesn't put together the pieces. I liked that the characters, despite the aforementioned constraints, were three dimensional. I didn't buy the openly gay sister: it seemed a stretch for the mid-to-late- 1800s.
I was ambivalent about the ending. I liked that it wasn't neat, but at the same time, we love these fictional worlds because our own is not neat and the escape should be to neatness. Or maybe that's just me.
2 comments:
In what percent of the mysteries you read do you guess the killer correctly?
Way back when I was in high school, I got an Agatha Christie kick. I read a bunch of them, and never figured out the killer. Then I read the ABC Murders, and figured out what was going on pretty early in the going. And that was the last Christie I read for years. It just didn't have the same oomph anymore.
To be honest, Grammarian, I really try NOT to guess the killer for that very reason. When they're too easy, it's not a lot of fun.
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