I had a good time tonight visiting with one of my girlfriends and attending our mystery book group. The book, A Corpse in the Koryo, was pretty much given a thumbs down by everyone – click on the title for more of my thoughts. I didn’t like it either but maybe next month’s book will be better.
What are we reading? In march it will be Dope by Sara Gran and for April we’ll read Real Murders by Charlaine Harris.
Our book group leader also shared with us the 20 Rules for Writing Detective Stories and while some of the rules are outdated (these were put together in 1936) some I think still hold true for whodunits. For example, rule #3 is no fun, I don’t mind a bit of romance in the mysteries but #7 is good. A murder mystery needs a corpse. Anyway those are fun so check them out and see what you think.
Now I’m off to read late into the night in hopes of finishing my Tuesday book group book.
Iliana, sorry to hear the book didn’t interest you all. There are times that we do encounter such books that don’t hold our interest at all, isn’t it? I hope the books you will be reading next will get better! Your link to the 20 Rules for Writing Detective Stories is very enlightening. If writing a novel is hard, I think it’s even harder to write a suspenseful detective story, hehe.
Dope was one of my most anticipated books of 2007, but it ran a little flat. It was like immitation mystery. Chandler for the modern reader or something like that. However, it was a quick read and I still think worth the few hours it takes.
I hope that even though no one liked the book that the discussion went well anyway. It seems that if the book turns out to be good, the discussion is much more lively.
Melody – I think writing a mystery novel has got to be so hard. Mystery fans are demanding and want clues but not an easy solution. I’d probably give away the identity without knowing it! ha,ha…
Mike B. – I don’t have high hopes for it. I liked her book Come Closer quite a bit but to me this book already doesn’t sound like a mystery. When I read a mystery I guess I want it to be a whodunit. We’ll see though – it does seem quite short.
Stephanie – We had two people that liked the book and actually it was kind of neat to hear why they liked it. I still didn’t change my opinion of it but it’s nice to see what is important to readers and the differences.
I’ll be curious to know what you think of Real Murders. I really enjoy what I’ve read by Charlaine Harris, but I haven’t yet read that particular series.
I can think of one classic mystery where #4 was applied and pulled off very nicely. I won’t mention the title because I’d hate to spoil it for anyone. 🙂 I can see where a lot of those rules are bent by authors these days. Thanks for sharing, Iliana.
I can’t remember whether or not I’ve read a Charlaine Harris book. I think I tried and failed, but someone recently mentioned a non-vampire series that sounded fun. Is that one of her vampire stories?
The rules are interesting. I do some are outdated and, honestly, writing rules are made to be broken. 😉
Literary Feline – I know which mystery you might be thinking of – Christie right? 🙂 I’m looking forward to the Harris book – I’ve heard it’s pretty humorous and I could use something like that now.
Nancy, aka Bookfool – Real Murders is not the vampire one. I’ve read a couple of those and found them pretty funny but somehow lost track of where I was in the series – ha,ha… Aren’t those rules funny too? How times have changed and thank goodness!