Tag Archives: unsatisfactory

Jan26

The Red Queen by Martha Grimes

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I’ve read every book Martha Grimes has ever written and the Richard Jury series has been one of my favorite series since the 1980s when she first started writing them. I still own all her work and she has always been an “auto buy” for me.

I never, ever thought I’d say this about one of her books, but this one should never have been written, much less published. It was only about 250 pages in total. Probably about 180 of them were filler and nonsensical. It would have been a great short story if the murder part of the plot had been distilled to its essence and published that way.

I love the recurring characters of the series, but the whole subplot with Sgt. Wiggins and Brian Macalvie was a distraction that served no purpose other than to add word count and pages to the book. The promise in the blurb that it would tie into Jury’s investigation went nowhere and there was no reason to have this whole road trip escapade in the book.

Melrose Plant served no purpose other than to eat and drink in his club with Jury. Even his “job” working at the victim’s stables offered no clues to solving the mystery like they usually do.

There was a chapter about pigs that was absolutely ludicrous as well as a visit to the characters of Plant’s home town that basically only served to remind us of all the quirky people who live in the village.

Jury also popped into several pubs where he’d solved crimes in recent books and we got to see him interact with bartenders in those places.

In short, this seemed like a goodbye “tour” of the series. If I’d known that, I might not have spent $28.00 on a short story with a lot of filler and nonsense woven in. This sort of makes me livid. I get that the author is now 95, but maybe she should have stopped with the book before this one rather than leave us long term fans with such a bitter taste in our mouths.

Dec5

The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris

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I came to this book with a white woman’ perspective because that’s what I am. Before I posted this review, I read some reviews on Reddit and Goodreads as I was afraid my being white had colored (forgive the pun) my perception of this novel. But it appears it did not. Many people of other races seem to agree with the thoughts I have on this book which gives me comfort that my perceptions were not skewed by my own race.

I picked this book up as the premise sounded intriguing and also because I’m trying to read more diverse fiction to try to educate myself more about how Black and other People of Color move through the world. I think that’s an important thing in our current climate.

I enjoyed the book in the beginning, but it did have some issues as it went on. There were two subplots that initially added to the story but eventually were disappointing. They were tossed in and never resolved or were not explained well or were ultimately not necessary.

The protagonist was kind of meh. She had some good points, but she seemed ashamed of her background—she came from a wealthier background than her best friend—the best friend who was the best character of the book. I did root for the protagonist as I wanted her to succeed. But the ending made me feel betrayed by the author. There was no real resolution and I wanted the villains to get their comeuppance. They didn’t. Which leads me to the subplots that weren’t resolved.

There was a “resistance” to the villains but they didn’t actually do any resisting. They watched and listened but were ineffective other than that.

The other subplot was about two women, one a writer and one an editor who had a hugely successful book launch in the 1980s. There was some sort of scandal (not really explained) and one (the editor) went into hiding and the other (the writer) became a sell out in her work—betraying what she initially stood for in her writing—or at least that’s what I gleaned from the disjointed flashbacks. The story skipped to them off and on, but the book would be okay without that subplot- maybe even better. All the subplot did was set up the work of the villains. It didn’t really add much to the tale as it was muddled and never really explained or resolved.

In short, this book didn’t seem complete. It dragged on too long for about 250-270 pages. Then there was a big rushed ending. Like there was a page count the author wanted to get to and then she stopped writing even with lots of parts hanging and not completed.

The protagonist betrayed the reader as well as herself with the way this book ended. Certain expectations are built in to a story as the reader gets to know the characters and when they don’t stay consistent with expectations, at the end, it leads to disappointment.

When I was in high school, we had to read ‘The Good Earth’. I hated the ending so much, I threw the paperback across the room. I wanted to do that to this book but it was a hardback and I was afraid of what I might hit. 🙂

I’m giving it 3 stars as I did enjoy parts of it and the writer is definitely talented. I just can’t get behind a higher rating for it.

I understand this is a mini-series on Hulu as well. I’ll be giving that a pass as I don’t want to get mad all over again at the ending.