RogerBW's Blog

The Grub-and-Stakers Spin a Yarn, Charlotte MacLeod 15 May 2019

1990, cosy American detective fiction; fourth of MacLeod's novels (as "Alisa Craig") of Dittany Henbit and the Lobelia Falls Grub-and-Stakers Gardening & Roving Club. Industrial espionage comes to town, and the local mincemeat magnate is under attack.

This is barely a story; it's much more a series of amusing incidents, with the barest thread of plot stringing them together. Dittany is pregnant with twins, and barely present in the story; it's her husband Osbert, writer of westerns and local deputy, who gets to do the actual working out of what's going on.

I think the main problem is one of tone: MacLeod invites the reader to take it all seriously, trying to generate sympathy with the victims of bereavement and murder, but at the same time has spies who dress up like old-time gangsters, a artist in kitsch filling her lawn with ranks of plastic flamingoes, and the MacGuffin that is a secret family mincemeat recipe. This sort of dissonance is something she's done before, of course, but for me the humour here drifts into the grotesque, while killing off the sense of escapism that usually comes from reading MacLeod's books.

At the same time it's very cursory; the solution to the mystery will be entirely obvious the moment a particular character shows up, and for all the characters don't know they're in a detective story one of the jobs of the author is to make the answer a little less blatantly based on the shape of the thing (MacLeod is usually reluctant to make recurring characters turn out to be villainous, and we meet very few other candidates).

I've said before that I read these largely as a sort of mental reset switch after a book with a strong flavour, but this one didn't do a great job; if it were the first book of MacLeod's I'd read I wouldn't go looking for another. Followed by The Grub-and-Stakers House a Haunt.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

Previous in series: The Grub-and-Stakers Pinch a Poke | Series: Dittany Henbit Monk | Next in series: The Grub-and-Stakers House a Haunt

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech aviation base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2022 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1