(no subject)
May. 5th, 2009 10:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsI tend to have trouble getting all the way through lengthy mystery series - I think the last I tried to read all the way through were the Amelia Peabody books, and I only got about three or four into those before losing track - but I liked both Barbara Hambly's first Benjamin January book, A Free Man of Color, and Walter Mosley's first Easy Rawlins book, Devil in a Blue Dress, a great deal, and am determined not to let my usual laziness with figuring out what comes next stop me!
(Heroic pose goes here, yes.)
Anyway, last week I read the second book of both of these series. Reviews are going under spoiler-cuts because technically anything could count as a spoiler for the first book, for example, BENJAMIN JANUARY DOES NOT DIE. (NEITHER DOES EASY RAWLINS. The spoiler mob can come after me now!)
Fever Season: I did not like this one quite as much as the last - only in part because of the tragic lack of cross-dressing lesbians! It also felt like there were just a few too many plots squeezed in here. There is the fever, there is the kidnapping for slavery, there is the completely unconnected kidnapping for CRAZY LADY, there is the poisoning, there is the sort of love story on top of that . . . there was so much running around after plot that we did not get as much time with the characters, which is really a shame, because the characters are awesome! Also, Rose occasionally set off my HOLY ANACHRONISTIC FEMINIST OPINIONS, BATMAN! sensors. I understand the temptation for this and can forgive! However, I would happily have traded some Rose-time for more time with (in no particular order): Shaw, Hannibal, Minou, Olympe, Livia. I know Ben has super-conflicted feelings about Livia and she is not intended to be a particularly sympathetic character, but I, I sort of love her.
A Red Death: So this takes place five years after Devil in a Blue Dress, and Easy has settled into a nice comfortable life as the fake janitor for the buildings he actually bought with his winnings . . . except now the IRS is after him, which means that he could lose everything if he does not do what the FBI tells him to and stalk a Jewish refugee they have identified as a Communist troublemaker. What makes these books interesting is how Easy tries to negotiate the compromises he has to make with his own conscience - how much can he blame other people for betraying him, how much of a betrayer will he be himself? The other most interesting thing about the books continues to be Mouse, Easy's completely psychopathic best friend - how much do you owe a guy who really loves you, and would do anything for you, and is also a cold-blooded killer who would kill you in an instant if you did the wrong thing? (I did, however, find myself kind of frustrated with EttaMae, just because "because your ex-husband who is still in love with you is my best friend" and "because your ex-husband who is still in love with you is a psychopath who will probably kill me if he finds us together" are two very good reasons for a gentleman to provide for why he is not interested in pursuing a relationship!) Also, by the end of the book Easy has kind of accidentally acquired a psychologically damaged adoptive son, and I am DYING to see how that plays out in future books!
One thing - I am not sure how I feel about the whole "Jews are in the same boat with us" theme in this book. In a way, I think that lets us off too easy? But I am saying this from my comfortable twentieth-century perspective, and things were a whole lot different back in the 1950s, I know, especially so close to after the Holocaust. Still, the idealization of Chaim Wenzler makes me fidget a little, maybe because he is the only character who is that idealized in the Easy Rawlins books so far.
(Heroic pose goes here, yes.)
Anyway, last week I read the second book of both of these series. Reviews are going under spoiler-cuts because technically anything could count as a spoiler for the first book, for example, BENJAMIN JANUARY DOES NOT DIE. (NEITHER DOES EASY RAWLINS. The spoiler mob can come after me now!)
Fever Season: I did not like this one quite as much as the last - only in part because of the tragic lack of cross-dressing lesbians! It also felt like there were just a few too many plots squeezed in here. There is the fever, there is the kidnapping for slavery, there is the completely unconnected kidnapping for CRAZY LADY, there is the poisoning, there is the sort of love story on top of that . . . there was so much running around after plot that we did not get as much time with the characters, which is really a shame, because the characters are awesome! Also, Rose occasionally set off my HOLY ANACHRONISTIC FEMINIST OPINIONS, BATMAN! sensors. I understand the temptation for this and can forgive! However, I would happily have traded some Rose-time for more time with (in no particular order): Shaw, Hannibal, Minou, Olympe, Livia. I know Ben has super-conflicted feelings about Livia and she is not intended to be a particularly sympathetic character, but I, I sort of love her.
A Red Death: So this takes place five years after Devil in a Blue Dress, and Easy has settled into a nice comfortable life as the fake janitor for the buildings he actually bought with his winnings . . . except now the IRS is after him, which means that he could lose everything if he does not do what the FBI tells him to and stalk a Jewish refugee they have identified as a Communist troublemaker. What makes these books interesting is how Easy tries to negotiate the compromises he has to make with his own conscience - how much can he blame other people for betraying him, how much of a betrayer will he be himself? The other most interesting thing about the books continues to be Mouse, Easy's completely psychopathic best friend - how much do you owe a guy who really loves you, and would do anything for you, and is also a cold-blooded killer who would kill you in an instant if you did the wrong thing? (I did, however, find myself kind of frustrated with EttaMae, just because "because your ex-husband who is still in love with you is my best friend" and "because your ex-husband who is still in love with you is a psychopath who will probably kill me if he finds us together" are two very good reasons for a gentleman to provide for why he is not interested in pursuing a relationship!) Also, by the end of the book Easy has kind of accidentally acquired a psychologically damaged adoptive son, and I am DYING to see how that plays out in future books!
One thing - I am not sure how I feel about the whole "Jews are in the same boat with us" theme in this book. In a way, I think that lets us off too easy? But I am saying this from my comfortable twentieth-century perspective, and things were a whole lot different back in the 1950s, I know, especially so close to after the Holocaust. Still, the idealization of Chaim Wenzler makes me fidget a little, maybe because he is the only character who is that idealized in the Easy Rawlins books so far.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-05 04:07 pm (UTC)http://www.mohammedt-shirt.com