strange and random happenstance

The Author's Guide to Murder by Lauren Willig, Beatriz Williams, and Karen White
Published by: William Morrow and Company
Publication Date: November 5th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 416 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Authors Kat de Noir, Cassie Pringle, and Emma Endicott all had their own reasons for not wanting to hear Brett Saffron Presley's keynote address at Bouchercon. Which is why the bar was the place to be for those not worshiping at the altar of the "great man." The three authors walked into the bar and became besties at first sight. Besties with plans to concoct for their future collaboration, Fifty Shades of Plaid! At first it was a joke, a way to write, tour, and more importantly, drink together, with their publisher picking up the tab. And at first their shared editor, Rachelle Cohen, laughed off the suggestion, but she wasn't laughing a month later when they brought her a real book proposal. Which is how Kat, Cassie, and Emma end up at Brett Saffron Presley's Scottish castle. Years ago he rented Castle Kinloch from it's destitute heir and turned it into an overpriced writer's retreat where he could indulge his womanizing ways with the nubile young authors who were desperate for a leg up. Thankfully that descriptor fits none of the three collaborators. The trio are more interested in Naughty Ned than Badly Behaved Brett. Naughty Ned was the laird of Kinloch Island. Known for his sexual depravity and orgies, he was poisoned during a house party in 1900 and his murder was never solved. And this lewd laird is the perfect inspiration for Fifty Shades of Plaid. Though that might prove to be problematic as the locals don't like to talk about Naughty Ned. His murder is the most notorious thing to happen on the island until Brett Saffron Presley is found dead the night of the ceilidh. His body is bound in strategic strips of black leather, surrounded by erotic tapestries, and pseudomedieval accouterments in the castle's tower. The three female American writers staying at the castle soon become the prime suspects. But why could they possibly want Brett Saffron Presley dead? They're best friends, they're there to write... Or are they? Because at that Bouchercon over a year ago Brett Saffron Presley announced his new book, a "graphic and no-holds-barred memoir of his life as the most innovative and controversial writer of his generation" and all three women have had previous run-ins with him. Emma, when she and Brett were a couple, Kat when she was an up-and-coming author at Yaddo, and Cassie at the 2019 CrimeLovers Convention in New York City. But what happened between them and Brett Saffron Presley for them to fake friendship in order to exact revenge and possibly murder? How bad could it be?

Team W is known for their historical fiction. Intertwining narratives linking past and present. So, coming out with what basically amounts to a murderous roman à clef set in the present doesn't feel logical. Some might say that The Author's Guide to Murder doesn't feel like a Team W book at all. Counterpoint, it's the most Team W book EVER. They mine themselves and their shared history to create a meta melange where you're not sure what's real and what's not. Because them bonding in a bar and deciding to collaborate on a book called Fifty Shades of Plaid? That is one hundred percent true. As was their desire for their publisher to foot the bar bill. And all the sheep jokes. The thing is, usually an author's book isn't them unless it's a memoir. Who they are and what they write are totally separate things. But if you've ever been lucky enough to see Lauren, Beatriz, and Karen interact, to see them promoting a book, well, this book is them distilled down and then amplified. This is the Team W people clamor for on their book tours and yet so many reviews bemoan that this isn't what they wanted. What!?! This IS them. This is the pantomime version of them that then reveals a darker truth about the publishing industry. What I admire most about this book is that you really have to trust your fellow author, really be the best of friends, in order to do these caricatures of each other that aren't always the most flattering. I honestly don't think I could be this vulnerable and raw with another person let alone have it published, but that's the bond of this team. What's more, it's obvious that each character is one of the authors but that another of the authors wrote them. Kat is Karen, Cassie is Beatriz, and Emma is Lauren. Well, to a certain extent. But I can tell it's obviously Lauren writing Kat, so it's this fun tag team effort of exposing and making fun of each other that, if you know enough about them, just adds a whole level of fun to the book. And somehow this book is fun. It's dealing with three women who were the victims of one man and yet it's empowering and cathartic. When male authors have always been treated with more respect than their female counterparts and their indiscretions ignored it's nice to have women reclaiming the narrative. Especially when there's the predators out there, like Neil Gaiman, who need to be held to account. Here's to amusement and accountability!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Beatriz Williams, Cassie Pringle, Emma Endicott, Fifty Shades of Plaid, Karen White, Kat de Noir, Lauren Willig, Meta, Murder Most Foul, Revenge, Roman A Clef, Scotland, Sheep, Team W, The Author's Guide to Murder

The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith
Published by: Mulholland Books
Publication Date: August 30th, 2022
Format: Hardcover, 1024 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy

Edie Ledwell and Josh Blay are the creators of the successful cartoon The Ink Black Heart. An unknown assailant attacked them in Highgate Cemetery, killing Edie and leaving Josh paralyzed. The authorities believe that Edie was targeted by The Halvening, a right-wing terrorist group that targets powerful women. Robin isn't so convinced. Before her death Edie Ledwell had come into the agency to talk to Robin about an online harassment campaign directed against her by someone going by the name Anomie. Anomie is a hardcore fan who co-created the popular Drek's Game based on The Ink Black Heart. Ever since Edie disparaged Drek's Game in an interview Anomie has turned nasty. With film rights for The Ink Black Heart about to be signed the harassment had intensified to the point that Josh was led to believe that Edie herself was Anomie trying to get sympathy by playing the victim. Because Anomie's intelligence is eerily accurate. Not many people knew that Edie tried to kill herself, and yet within minutes Anomie had posted the details, down to which hospital Edie was admitted to. But Robin turned down the case, cybercrime isn't something she and Strike deal with. Though she did refer Edie to some other agencies that could help her. Obviously they didn't otherwise Edie wouldn't be dead and the producers of the film wouldn't be asking Robin and Strike to take on the case. Robin won't let Edie down a second time. Because of Edie's conviction that Anomie has to be someone close Robin and Strike compile a list of her acquaintances, especially those from the North Grove Art Collective, where Edie and Josh met and many of their friends still live. And they develop what they think is a foolproof form of elimination. If someone isn't online when Anomie is, well, then they couldn't be Anomie, right? Proving their ignorance of the internet and the need for an agency that specializes in cybercrime. What's more, it seems that all of their suspects are playing Drek's Game under pseudonyms. Ex's, both romantic and business, agents, family, anyone could be a suspect, but only one is a killer. To find that out Robin is going to have to get close to those in Drek's Game. But is it wise to interrogate someone who could be anyone and who brags that they killed Edie? They are playing with fire and they might just get burned.

She did it. She actually fucking did it. She wrote over a roman à clef that clocks in at over a thousand pages about how she, a white billionaire, is the victim at the hands of her unhinged fans. Talk about a persecution complex! Talk about an ego! I mean, the words almost fail me because I can't believe that anyone would be so lost in their own little bubble that they would think that writing this screed would be acceptable. Though it's not just the whole "woe is me" of it, because that might have been slightly tolerable, it's how she is the victims of her fans. Her fans have killed her for being who she is. Well, if this is what you really think of your fans, well, can anyone blame them? The fans are just, I mean, I really can't believe she would say this stuff let alone write it, but then again I hang my head every time she opens her mouth these days. She vilifies them and degrades them and makes them the obvious choice for who killed "her." Because they are all so beneath her that any one of them was capable of doing the deed because she betrayed them by being true to herself. I mean, the rage I feel on behalf of anyone who has ever loved her writing just infuriates me. How could you say these things about the children who literally made you a billionaire!?! Who lived in your magical worlds only to be told that they aren't worthy of the worlds anymore. They have been expelled from Narnia for being disabled and overweight and victimized and abused. Oh, and let's not forget that after creating this mammoth cast of characters with online personas and elaborate backstories she decides that the killer is the incel son of Josh's agent. An acne riddled mess who never leaves his room and doesn't limit his death toll to just Edie. That ending was a cop-out! I mean, at least it wasn't the Nazis, but remember, those Nazis are also out to take down powerful women. But if you can't beat them join them. And while you're at it why not totally forget that this book is set in 2015 so there wasn't a female Doctor yet and no one used Karen as an insult. Unless the "K" in J.K. stands for Karen and she's actually the OG Karen!?! And the thing is, I don't want to bait this Karen, especially because she's left behind a certain tax bracket. She's vindictive, as this book shows, and she'll come for you. And I just want to stay away from this fucking toxic dumpster fire. If you don't believe me and don't feel like reading this, watch the show. Having to distill down this toxicity to only four hours was a fete that succeeds while also making you feel physically ill. There's a lot of hate in the world and why someone would want to pile on, and pile on their supporters, is beyond my comprehension.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Anomie, Cartoon, Cormoran Strike, Degradation, Drek's Game, Edie Ledwell, Fandom, Highgate Cemetery, Internet, J.K. Rowling, Josh Blay, Murder Most Foul, Nazis, Robin Ellacott, Roman A Clef, The Ink Black Heart

Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz
Published by: Harper
Publication Date: October 6th, 2016
Format: Paperback, 498 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Editor Susan Ryeland has a bit of a problem. Alan Conway is a very successful author for her publishing house. Without him they'd be in serious trouble. As it is they've had a very rough year and his next book needs to be a success to stabilize everything. She's never much liked Alan, but there's no doubt that the reading public adores his Atticus Pünd series. It's classic golden age detection written today, with a deeply affecting and dark backstory for it's lead. The problem is his newest book, Magpie Murders, is missing the final chapters and Alan has committed suicide. Her boss Charles even receives Alan's suicide note in the mail. Susan knows how important this book is, not just to Alan's readers, but to her continued employment. Therefore she sets out to find the missing pages. But that's when things get weird. Alan's home turns out to be the fictional Pye Hall where both deaths happened in his newest manuscript. What's more, everyone in Alan's life has a counterpart on the page. Alan's sister, his lover, his neighbor, even the vicar, everyone is somehow represented within the pages of his story. Which makes Susan wonder, what is really happening on these pages? Could they be hiding a secret? Did Alan even kill himself? Perhaps it was murder! Alan seemed to really rub everyone the wrong way. When events start to happen just like they did in the book, Susan wonders what is really going on. There are some deep and disturbing secrets held within the pages of Alan's work. He was a vindictive man who wanted not just fame but prestige. He was wasted on golden age procedurals, at least in his mind, and he amused himself in very spiteful ways. If she can solve the crimes in the manuscript perhaps it will lead to solving the mystery of Alan. That or she's out of a job. At least her boyfriend would be happy. He wants to whisk her off to a Greek isle to help his cousin run a hotel. But Susan, the woman who could never guess whodunit, wants to solve the case, even if it costs her her life.

If there's one thing that Anthony Horowitz knows it's murder. Which might actually be my issue with this book. It's not that it's not deftly plotted and keeps you on your toes, it's that with Susan, an editor who can never guess whodunit, we have a character who has to give us "teaching moments" about writers and television shows, most of which Horowitz has written for, and I just felt like it was condescending while at the same time insulting Susan's, and the readers, intelligence. But Susan is a whole other problem I don't know if I feel like getting into. If you picked up this book because of Horowitz, you know what he's written, you know that Atticus Pünd is going to be a pitch perfect Germanic cousin to Poirot because Horowitz adapted eleven episodes for David Suchet. And so he is. There is no doubt of the bona fides here. And yes, you could say that it's done tongue firmly in cheek, like with his Hawthorne and Horowitz series where he has gone so far as to make himself an actual character in his books, but it just didn't feel that way to me. Perhaps it was just that Alan Conway is so full of himself and such a pompous ass that that superiority of being seeps into the whole book and it just gives off a smugness that I just don't care for. I don't know if it's that Horowitz is actually that smug about his career, or that I'm misreading it. I just felt like this book was in may face. It was at me trying to get it's point across. What was that point? Well, it's interesting in that it seems that Horowitz thinks authors have a duty of care towards their readers and that they shouldn't betray their trust. I totally agree with him here, it just could have been presented in a different manner. In fact, the number one thing I kept thinking about, as he'd name dropped her a few times, is what does he think about J.K. Rowling's decent into TERFdom? Because she has totally betrayed her readers. And looking online I saw him tweet in defense of her and then try to reframe the narrative. So. Yeah.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alan Conway, Anthony Horowitz, Atticus Pund, David Suchet, Editor, Hawthorne and Horowitz, J.K. Rowling, Magpie Murders, Manuscript, Murder, Murder Most Foul, Poirot, Roman A Clef, Suicide, Susan Ryeland, TERF

The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith
Published by: Mulholland Books
Publication Date: June 17th, 2014
Format: Hardcover, 464 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

Leonora Quine's husband Owen is missing. He was once a literary success story, but not anymore. His latest novel, Bombyx Mori, which slanders those he holds responsible for his fall from grace has been leaked. He could be in hiding, worrying about the repercussions of having his protagonist eaten alive by the cruel caricatures of his colleagues. All his wife knows is that she needs Owen back to help with their developmentally disabled child. So she turns to Cormoran Strike, whose detective agency is on firmer footing since the infamous Lula Landry case. Strike thinks that one of the seven people depicted in the book is sure to know something. And when Cormoran finds Quine's body strung up in an abandoned house, pulled apart and doused in acid, just like a scene in his leaked manuscript, those seven people all become murder suspects because of Quine's slander. There's Owen's wife, Lenora, then there's his lover, Kathryn Kent, and her protégée, Pippa Midgley, his agent, Elizabeth Tassel, his editor, Jerry Waldegrave, his publisher, Daniel Chard, and his rival, Michael Fancourt. Cormoran meets with each and every one of these people, often over drawn out meals, and they all point the finger at each other. The truth is each and every one of them has a reason for wanting Quine dead. But the police are convinced it's Leonora. Cormoran must get his client cleared and so he starts to narrow in on Fancourt. Fancourt's first wife committed suicide after her book was lambasted by a cruel parody. Fancourt has always believed Quine was the author of that parody. But what if Quine wasn't? What if Quine didn't even write Bombyx Mori? Yes, that is the title of the book he was working on, but once Kathryn and Pippa get their hands on the leaked manuscript they notice major differences to the work in progress that Quine was showing them. Could one person be behind both attacks on this literary group? And if so, will they strike again if they think they are in danger or simply frame someone else to take the fall?

I will admit, it has taken me awhile to warm to Rowling's new series. While there is oddly a similarity between Harry and Cormoran, both being people thrust into the limelight who don't want to be there, this series is almost all about character and doesn't have the action of constantly avoiding death time and time again. It's not even about the mystery, it's about the characters. Which leads to the book occasionally dragging. Rowling is in no hurry to wrap things up. I could say she did this on purpose because this is probably a more realistic PI story because it takes time to get around to all the clues and to get everyone interviewed. But I think she was just enjoying herself with this scathing roman a clef that she didn't really think too much about finally revealing the killer. Because this is an insiders look at the publishing world and all that entails. It entails a lot of meals if you were wondering. And backstabbing. And backbiting. And general dislike of everyone else. You eventually get to the point where you're wondering if Rowling is using this as some kind of therapy to vent all her frustrations on the would in which she has become the darling. Perhaps she's even wondering what will happen when she falls from grace? Seeing as the book within the book is libelous slander against other writers I can't help but wonder if all these people in Quine's orbit are actually based on real people in Rowling's. Could she be using a book about using a book to exact revenge to exact her own revenge? We will probably never know. But that insular little literary world while interesting, up to a point, is ultimately the downfall of the book reaching perfection. It's too insular without explanation. So Strike, and therefore the reader, are just left scratching their heads instead of coming to any sort of appreciation. Perhaps the next book is when she'll hit her stride? And hopefully kill Robin's fiance Matthew.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Authors, Bombyx Mori, Cormoran Strike, J.K. Rowling, Literary World, Lula Landry, Meals, Murder Most Foul, Owen Quine, Parody, Revenge, Robert Galbraith, Roman A Clef, Slander, The Silkworm

Mad World by Paula Byrne
Published by: Harper
Publication Date: 2009
Format: Paperback, 384 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy

"Does anyone else have the Tears for Fears song stuck in her head?

Whether or not the Lygons and their home, Madresfield Court, truly served as Waugh’s model for Brideshead Revisited, this book is a lucid and highly entertaining window into the same small segment of society I needed to understand in order to write The Other Daughter.

Since novelists are inveterate borrowers, it seemed only right to borrow elements of Madresfield (“Madders”) for Rachel’s father’s estate, Carrisford (“Caffers”). Any similarities are more than coincidental." - Lauren Willig

Evelyn Waugh was one of the writers who immortalized the 20s generation of "Bright Young People" through his books. But his book, Brideshead Revisited, more then any of his other work, was a touchstone for a generation and one of the greatest books of the 20th century. Yet the story didn't emerge fully formed from his conscious, it was inspired by his relationship with the Lygon family. They lived in a great old pile, Madresfield, where the three sons and four daughters grew up in bucolic bliss till their family was rocked by scandal. The Lygon patriarch, Lord Beauchamp, was exiled from England upon divorce proceedings initiated by his wife for his homosexual tendencies. The children blamed their mother for this rend in the family and started to live a life devoid of parental control. Into this world Evelyn Waugh appeared. Bringing his signature wit and style he befriended the family and came to fall in love with them all, rumors had it that back at Oxford he was more then a little in love with the second son, Hugh. Hugh would become the basis for Sebastian Flyte, and the entire Lygon family and their life was to be immortalized in Waugh's magnum opus. But did they have any say in the matter?

If you want to keep your well held belief that Evelyn Waugh is a genius and Brideshead Revisited is one of the most original masterpieces of the last century, I urge you not to read this book. If, on the other hand, you always suspected that Waugh wasn't that nice or that Brideshead Revisited was a boring plotless book, well, you probably won't read Mad World, but know that your opinion is validated a thousand fold. While I always suspected that Evelyn Waugh wasn't that nice, never did I think that he would so carelessly use his friends and family as fodder for his books. Yes, I did know that he satirized those around him, much as Nancy Mitford did, but this book brought it home as something more. Waugh was a user. He lived an itinerant life travelling from one friend's home to another and then using what he saw there to create his books. He lambasted friends who couldn't use the world around them as fodder for their books and needed to do research, yet he used the lives him around in a cruel and flippant ways in his work. He was a leech, and not a very likable one. The thing that mystifies me is that Byrne claims that Waugh's friends didn't blame him for capitalizing on their pain, that mockery was part and parcel or being Waugh's friend and that he was easy to forgive. Yet Byrne says this, she doesn't show this. How am I to believe this? Because it sounds like Waugh hurt a lot of people to get to where he got in the literary world and that the wounds struck his friends deep but they just put on a brave face for him.

Mad World boils down all Waugh's books, his entire literary cannon, to thinly disguised roman à clefs. Byrne, while obviously a fan of Waugh, did a disservice to him in writing this book because it takes away the magic of that lost generation captured in Brideshead Revisited. Why is the magic gone? Because Waugh just used the Lygon family and transferred their lives into another medium. While the book still captures this lost generation of halcyon Oxford days, it narrows down the universality of the book. It makes it one family's history, not an archetypal history. It also shows that Waugh, while able to spin a wonderful phrase, didn't have an original bone in his body. He was more historian than writer. All his books, not just Brideshead Revisited, are rooted in reality, almost painfully so. Each character has a real life counterpart, each adventure is centered on a story in his life. While writers do take inspiration from the world around them, it feels like Waugh was a hack. He could ONLY write the world around him transmuted into a book. And while Brideshead Revisited was a loving portrayal of the Lygons, unlike some of his vicious parodies hidden in such characters as Anthony Blanche, did Waugh's friendship with them give him carte blanche to write this story? No it didn't. He used them and moved on.

But what disturbed me most about this book was that while the book was cleverly supposed to be a dual history of Waugh and the Lygons, which is why I was interested in this book, it became more and more a single-sided story where we were just given Waugh's POV. We read his copious letters to the Lygon sisters, and how they were transmuted into the Flytes, down to even phrases excised from Waugh's letters to them and then used in the book, but we never hear their voices. We never get a feeling as to who these sisters were. Was their relationship reciprocal? Did they actually write to Evelyn as much as he wrote to them? Why don't we have any of their letters? Was Waugh perhaps a venal man who carried on single-sided correspondence with the great and the good making more out of a friendship then it really was? I'd say this is quite possible and without any evidence or letters to the contrary, this is the only conclusion I can reach. The Lygon sisters where barely more than props to Evelyn who used his connection to them to puff up his ego and used his experiences with them to make a name for himself with his writing. And while Byrne states that after the sisters left Madresfield forever Waugh kept up a correspondence with them that lasted the rest of his life, but that isn't what it looks like. It looks like he wrote Brideshead Revisited, made a true masterpiece and dropped them. He'd occasionally look in but he had no use for them and his old itinerant lifestyle so, much like the props they appear to be, they were placed in storage only to be occasionally let out into the light.

The subject matter and how it's handled wasn't the biggest downfall of the book. The biggest downfall was the haphazard way that Byrne decided to keep some facts and omit others. By redacting parts of Evelyn's life, how can I actually believe anything this authors says in her stilted and amateurish writing style? She skips over things that I think are rather important, like Evelyn working as a gossip columnist. Not only did this feed into his writing style but it was a common experience with his friends and contemporaries. Why omit this? Because if it was to show him as a superior writer, well, everything about this book portrays him as a hack, so why not a hack journalist? Then Byrne's lack of adherence to naming conventions drove me batty. In a time when everyone had three nicknames, just choose one please? I seriously don't know which is which Lygon sister due to Byrne randomly choosing a different nickname or occasionally their real name. Just stop. But worst of all was the repetitive nature of the book, the reliance on only a handful of quotes used over and over again. Did Byrne have any editor at all? My guess is no as in the way she's string quotes from different sources with clunky "and this" "and then" "and now." This kind of sloppy writing was beaten out of me in high school and here is a published author trying to write a discourse on Brideshead Revisited that wouldn't pass muster with the most generous of teachers.

As for the most disgusting aspect of this book? The general acceptance of pederast culture. Wherein any pretty young man was viewed as fair game, even if they were underage. Teacher's quite literally using their students, in particular a nasty story about one of Evelyn's friends having a student sodomize him with his foot, and Lord Beauchamp using every able bodied and attractive male as a possible sexual conquest. I'm not saying this shouldn't be addressed or omitted. This happened and a discourse needs to be had. What I am saying is that it shouldn't be treated with such a laissez-faire attitude. Using a position of power for sex is something that should NEVER be acceptable. Yes it happens, but it's this acceptance by people like Byrne that allow it to continue. That this happened should incite a revolt! It shouldn't be a joke in one of Waugh's letters. Some talk about the culture of the time would have been considerate. But making a point that this is unacceptable needed to be said, and Byrne didn't. She even seemed to find it all a little piquant, especially when discussing Beauchamp and his servants. It's not piquant, it's repulsive.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Brideshead Revisited, Bright Young People, Evelyn Waugh, Hack, Jazzy July, Lauren Willig, Leech, Lygons, Mad World, Madresfield, Nancy Mitford, Paula Byrne, Roman A Clef, The Other Daughter