Santa Clawed by Rita Mae Brown and Sneaky Pie Brown
Yes, I am working my way through the Mrs. Murphy books. This latest installment was better than the previous one, The Purrfect Murder. It came closer to the earlier books in the series in terms of characters and story line, as well as my personal enjoyment.
I do not understand the author's fascination with Catholic monks. Truthfully, I cannot decide if it is more a case of curiosity or an anti-Catholic bias. Either way, this was the second book in the series that featured a murder among a monastery community, though for some reason this one did not reference the previous book, either in story or characters. You would not think that an area as small as Crozet is would have two completely unrelated monastery communities. But that may be my own Catholic-bias. That could also explain my non-fascination with religious communities. While the religious community was integral to the story, but it need not have been strictly a religious community. The monastery was simply a plot point, and the group in question could have been anything from a college campus to a social group. The story was interesting, and the final murderer was a surprise to me, though I had some parts figured out long before the author revealed the facts. I read mainly for enjoyment and diversions from my every-day routine. The challenge of figuring out the mystery is not important to my enjoyment, I much prefer to have a good story with engaging characters. And the regular characters in the series are quite engaging, especially the animals. I think the new to each book characters are not meant to be very engaging, so that when they are never mentioned again, the readers don't really have a reason to wonder about them.
One of the things I have noticed about series mysteries, especially series set in small towns, is that either new characters are introduced in each installment, characters that have never been previously mentioned and are never mentioned again, or beloved characters must be victimized, simply for lack of new blood. The Mrs. Murphy series takes the Star Trek route. You know how in Star Trek episodes, the new, unnamed character in the red uniform is always going to die? Well in series mysteries, the new, never-before-mentioned characters are either going to be the victim of murder or will be the murderer. As a result, the books can be rather formulaic. Of course, mysteries are formulaic by their very nature, but I have become more and more aware of this Star Trek plot device as I have worked my way through the series. I am beginning to wonder if each new installment will follow the Star Trek formula, or will it go the way of Lillian Jackson Braun's The Cat Who... series and sacrifice local characters. Only time will tell.
Back to this story though, it was well constructed, and had much more animal involvement. Perhaps it's because I am a bear, but I always like the animal-driven scenes better than the human interaction scenes. This was back to classic Mrs. Murphy with a good amount of animal interaction, and the animals had save Harry once again. Overall, I say this book is worth reading, but if you skip it you will not have missed much.
One Bear's Rating: Three Cups of Cocoa
Happy Reading Everyone,
Oliver
No comments:
Post a Comment