A good mystery

[athenaltena]

I do love myself a good mystery novel, and I found a good one that my dad leant me a while ago that I only just go around to reading.

Last night I was up far too late finishing Ross Macdonald’s The Chill, and though I’d been reading it for a few days I had to get to the end of this story because it was just so damn twisty and I needed to find out how it would end. I won’t give it away, but if I were to draw up a chart of how people were connected and it would probably end up looking like it came out of Tsubasa. Really. That’s how convoluted it ends up getting.

I also like how he put you in the mind of the detective, especially how at various points I’d pause and think “Could it be X?” when new information was revealed. And let me tell you, the last twist I did not see coming, and once that dropped my reaction was “Damn! That’s dark for the 1960s!” I actually had briefly wondered if it was that partciular person, but dismissed the idea because of something about them that seemed obvious. Then it turns out it was more complicated than that. Far more. I more or less had to reattach my jaw.

There was also a brief mention of lesbians that raised my eyebrows, since even though it was a mystery novel that’s still not something you’d expect of something published in 1963. I was also amused by a mention of Heraclitus since I just took a class on that.

Comments

[kryptyd.livejournal.com]

Were they evil lesbians? I'm pretty sure those were allowed in 60s ficiton

[athenaltena.livejournal.com]

Surprisingly not, it was actually a pretty neutral mention. Basically they were asking about a girl and a female professor and what their relationship was, and it was brought up as a possibility. There wasn't really an "ew" reaction to the idea either, just brought up as a possibility by the detective character that they dismissed because there wasn't any evidence, and it did turn out to be something different.

[kryptyd.livejournal.com]

That's good I suppose :)

I might give it a go. I have a bit of a commute to work these days so I'm tearing through books and I like twisty stuff. The last mystery I read was a Agatha Christie one, and I made the stupid mistake of thinking "oh it couldn't be the rude, working class guy, who acts suspiciously and has a big black beard and is possibly foreign because that would be too obvious". *eye roll* It would be nice to read something where I don't guess whodunnit!

[athenaltena.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I doubt you'll guess with this novel. It took up until the last page for it to fall into place for me. It does have some 1960s sensibilities, but it's pretty fair for its day. It's one of the few things from that era I've read that deals with divorce matter-of-factly (probably helps that MacDonald himself came from a family where his father left).