(Pretend it’s the beginning of March.)
February! I hardly knew you.
I was fortunate enough to spend a week in Spain the end of January. It was a busy, food and sight-filled trip that I thoroughly enjoyed. (If you ever get the chance to see the Sagrada Familia, do. Inside, it is one of the most breathtaking sights I’ve seen in my lifetime.) But upon returning home, I got sick, and how. Even a month later, I’m still wheezing occasionally and fatigued. This meant that the beginning of February went by in a mucus-filled haze. I managed to get some reading done, though, so here are thoughts on my February reads!
I read some excellent horror, mystery, and noir this month, starting with…
The Pale House Devil by Richard Kadrey
I loved this story! A snappy horror noir, it follows a pair of supernatural detectives (my favorite kind) as they hunt a monster attached to a house belonging to a terrible old rich man. His granddaughter hires Ford and Neuland to rid the house of the monster, only to find out that the man is more monstrous than the monster or Neuland–who isn’t quite alive, either.
Told both from the detectives and the monster’s pov, this story was entertaining, a little scary, witty, a little gruesome, a little dark, and a lot of fun. This blend of horror/noir/snark is similar to the tone of my own vampire detective series. It’s my jam. Exactly what I like to write and what I like to read. Highly recommend, if snarky paranormal noir is also your jam.
A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle (reread)
It’s been ages since I tore through my copy of the collected Sherlock Holmes in middle school, carrying around the giant book like it might protect me from the horrors of puberty. (It didn’t.) I went through a mystery phase as a teen, making my way through Holmes and Poirot, while never quite getting to Miss Marple or Nero Wolfe. This year, I’ve been wanting to get back to the murder mystery basics in preparation for writing my next vampire detective mystery–a locked room whodunit. It doesn’t get more basic than Sherlock Holmes #1!
Holmes doesn’t disappoint. He’s imperious, rude to everyone except Watson, immediately warm and welcoming to Watson, strange, and, well, Holmes. The details of the mystery are revealed as Holmes and Watson settle into their routine of living at 221b Baker street together and investigating cases.
(I had completely blocked out the Mormons from my memory. Hoo boy. Mormons by way of Victorians. It’s … quite something.)
The actual mystery is perhaps less interesting than the detectives doing the investigating, and the story does ground to a halt to describe Utah in a way that’s somewhat baffling but somewhat based on true events. Fun for Holmes completionists and if you want to see where Holmes and Watson got their start.
This is what I thought The Price of Salt/Carol was going to be like. I’m not sure where I got that idea. I expected Queenpin to be more like Carol and Carol to be more like Queenpin. Wrong on both counts.
Queenpin is a sexy thriller noir starring an ambitious, sex-positive (almost sex-obsessed?) female accountant-turned-enforcer in the world of casinos and mobsters. The narrator is groomed by her mentor to become the biggest bitch in the room, succeeding in a man’s world and living the high life all the while. But to do so, she has to turn off her heart. Of course, she can’t, and the narrator’s passionate affair with a dirtbag man splits the two women and causes a betrayal more profound than the one at the heart of the affair.
I found this a fun story, but can’t say it’s all that memorable. I enjoyed the breezy noir style, though it almost became too much a few times. The story’s twists weren’t shocking, but the frank sexiness surprised me – in a good way.
Holy cow, I also loved this story! WHAT a novel. Like The Pale House Devil, this is a genre that deeply appeals to me, as an elder millennial and enjoyer of horror movies. Add a dash of meta fiction to the mix and I was hooked from the start.
The story follows disgraced journalist Scott McGrath and the oddball characters he picks up as he investigates the suicide of Ashley Cordova–the troubled genius daughter of notorious horror filmmaker Stanislaus Cordova. The reclusive filmmaker has a cult-like (or just cult?) following and Scott believes he may have an outsized influence on both the world and in the downfall of his own career. Did Ashley really kill herself? And if so, why? The answer to this central question becomes less important than the impact of the Cordova family on the world–and the impact of the intrepid reporters on each other.
I read this on my Kindle, so the included meta elements (fictional movie reviews, medical records, old web pages, etc.) were somewhat hard to read. I did read them, but didn’t dwell on them. The story as told was enough, I think, without them. I loved how the elements of the mystery unspooled and how the ending was just as much about Scott finding his peace with the world as it was about finding Cordova–and I loved the ambiguity of the final pages. The novel was self-aware enough to avoid too much cringey nostalgia for the early internet and smart about the ways cult fandom can veer off the rails into disturbed territory. I loved all the fictional movie details and enjoyed how immersive both the NYC and the fictional movie set/compound settings felt.
Mel Lake | Writer, etc. 