Not a Girl Detective by Susan Kandel

Finished it yesterday. Overall reaction: Decent but not outstanding.

Not a Girl Detective was a pleasant enough read; it's a good concept: Cece Caruso writes biographies of famous mystery writers and then finds herself involved in mysteries that in some way relate to her subjects lives and/or characters; in fact, the concept might get me to read another book, despite this one's drawbacks.

I mostly liked the main character, loved her clothes, and appreciated the strong friendship portrayed in the book.

Still, it was a book that felt longer than it should have.

One reason for this is that Kandel frequently gives into the temptation to provide undigested chunks of information, bits that she apparently found fascinating but that don't really relate to the mystery itself. With the Nancy Drew segments, this was largely forgivable: The main character is writing a book on Carolyn Keene, after all, so the topic is bound to come up. Even here, though, it comes up more often and in more detail than is necessary; I can't imagine anyone coming up and just rattling off the first appearances of every animal in the Nancy Drew books, unasked, not even at a Nancy Drew convention. There are also wanderings off into other directions, only a few of which turn out to be relevant and many of which are similarly awkwardly placed--Cece sits down to read and tells us what she is reading, for example, or, again, another character wanders up and rattles off a string of information for no particular reason.

A more general note: Female amateur sleuths need to stop dating policeman almost as much as romance heroines need to give up vampires.

To give Kandel credit, it is not the handsome male policeman who saves her from the gun-toting criminal as he details his crimes, and the policeman in question also has the grace not to forbid Cece to involve herself in crime ever again, nor does he ever sit down and obligingly list of clues for Cece to pluckily piece together--so the worst pitfalls are avoided.

Conclusion: Looking for a light read? Check the paperback out of the library.

A New Aunt Dimity

Since I'm being highly distractible today, I may as well stop and point out that there is a new Aunt Dimity out (has been out since February, but I only just remembered to check; I miss Amazon's new-book-by notification, dead these many (two? three?) years). The two reviews I read said it's more travelogue than mystery, but that is ok; I don't really read the Aunt Dimity books for their suspense quotient. Anyway, I've now put Aunt Dimity Down Under on hold at the library. I'm something like third or fourth on the list, so it will be a little while until I get to read it, but that's ok. It isn't the only hold I have.

Also, I'm supposed to be reading Daily Life in the Byzantine Empire by Marcus Rautman (verdict so far: Informative but not scintillating--you have to already have an interest in Constantinople to keep going), and am actually reading Not a Girl Detective by Susan Kandel (verdict so far: Mildly interesting, prone to I-did-my-research infodumps and a bit longer than its story seems to warrant).