(no subject)

[skygiants]

I read K.J. Charles' Death in the Spires more or less in the course of a day, which happened to be the same day that I was reading comments on/responding to blotthis' post about aesthetic satisfaction in Genre: Mystery and Genre: Horror.

Death in the Spires is a really useful case study for genre: Mystery because Charles' usual Genre is Gay Romance. As this book was coming out she made a number of posts and announcements along the lines of: hello Readership, please be aware, this one's not Romance, it's Mystery, which does not mean there won't be romance in it, but please go into it with Mystery expectations rather than Romance expectations.

So already I was going into it expecting to pay attention to the rules of genre and how they worked or did not work in this book. And, having finished it feels really clear that the exact same fabric of characters and plot, tailored into a different shape, would form a standard Charles Romance, but because of the pattern being used the finished product is undeniably a Mystery, no question about it. And quite a fun one! I read it in a day!

The premise takes inspiration from Gaudy Night and The Secret History, among others: at the turn of the 20th century, a clique of golden youths forms at Oxford that's shattered by interpersonal romantic drama culminating in a mysterious murder; ten years later, having just received a particularly vicious poison-pen letter, one of the golden-youths-that-was decides it's finally time to figure out which one of his best-friends-that-was is a killer. The youths all seem likeable and the loss of the trust and friendship among them as important to the plot as the murder itself, which is one of the things that makes the book work, IMO.

Because of blot's post, I've been thinking a fair bit about what I want mystery-as-genre to do. P.D. James said very famously that the mystery novel is the restoration of order from disorder: a murder happens, but by the end we understand why and how, and something is done about it to bring justice. Or not done about it; occasionally the detective decides that the just response is to not do anything about it. I do like it when that happens, even if I disagree with the detective on what the just response is. I like it when justice is legitimately a problem, in mystery novels; I like it when the solution is not just the solution to a puzzle (though of course it is pleasant when a puzzle is good) but an attempt at answering the question of 'how do you repair the world, when something terrible has happened that broke it? Because every death is something that breaks it.' I say an attempt because of course this is not really a question that can be answered satisfactorily, but it is nonetheless important to keep trying. So, really, I suppose, I think a mystery novel has succeeded when it has, a little bit, failed: the puzzle is solvable, and solved, but the problem is unsolvable, and the tension between those two things is one of the things that most interests me in a mystery book.

'I want to be a little uncomfortable at the end because of how we as human beings have to keep trying to answer a question that has no good answer by answering questions that do have answers' is probably not a fair thing to ask of mystery novels, which are also, famously, comfort reading. Nonetheless it is what I think the great books in this genre achieve and I think I am right to ask it. I am not saying that Death in the Spires is a great book of the genre, but it is asking the kinds of questions that I want a mystery to ask, and it satisfied me in that, in a way that many modern mystery novels don't.

It's not that in a romance novel the love interest would not have been the murderer; it's not even that in a romance novel the fact that the love interest was the murderer wouldn't have mattered, but it would have mattered in a different way. It is so easy to imagine the romance novel this book might have been in my head and it is very fun to see it not being that: like I said, a great case study in genre.

That said, regardless of who the murderer is or isn't, I don't think there's a world in which K.J. Charles would ever have had anyone except the one remaining wealthy straight white man standing be the actual villain. This is the problem with being K.J. Charles: your readers have expectations, so neither your Two Pioneering Oxford Women or your One Pioneering Oxford Black Man can turn out to be villains, and the book has got to have gay sex in it and the gay sex got to be at least somewhat romantic. It's not that I would have wanted any of those things to be different, I just feel that it will likely get a bit constraining as far as the actual puzzle part of the mystery if she goes on with this ...

But perhaps having written this first Mystery Shaped Book, which is so clearly cut from the same cloth as the romances, she'll have a bit more room to jump from there to something made from a different cloth as long as it's in the mystery shape. Like those games where you can match cards on either suit or number.

Comments

[sovay]

The youths all seem likeable and the loss of the trust and friendship among them as important to the plot as the murder itself, which is one of the things that makes the book work, IMO.

Crashing straight through into spoiler territory: I really appreciated that the awful behavior of the murder victim was not used to justify his death; killing him did stop him from ruining at one stroke the lives of just about everyone who had originally loved him, but it also stopped him from any chance of change, because he was so young and panicking in a free-fall of embittered entitlement and it's true that he might have just calcified into that destructive person, but no one will ever know if he could have gotten better because instead he got dead. It closed all possibilities. I care about that recognition.

(I read this book about a month ago and it was the first KJ Charles I had actually liked since my first try at her with Spectred Isle (2017), which is not meant as faint praise: I am designed more for mysteries than romances and I enjoyed the blend here, as well as the fact that it felt in some ways like a more direct and Edwardian take on a B-noir I am fond of. I did find it consistently underwritten as if she had traded in most of the prose in order to pack in the plot and I am not convinced the book would have turned out such a doorstop if she had written in more of the non-verbal information of all the emotionally important conversations, but it was not too thin for me to attach to the characters. Agreed that by process of representation it was not difficult to figure out the villain. I did like the structure of solving the murder which was not necessarily the mystery.)

[mme_n_b]

Thank you! Now I finally understand why I found it so unsatisfying - I missed all the warnings and went into the book expecting it to be a romance. Now I have to re-read it :)

[snickfic]

I have never had any luck with KJ Charles's romances, but I have trouble with romance in general. I wonder if this might work better for me. In any case, "shares elements with The Secret History" is a good start! I will put this on the list.

[chestnut_pod]

But perhaps having written this first Mystery Shaped Book, which is so clearly cut from the same cloth as the romances, she'll have a bit more room to jump from there to something made from a different cloth -- Word on the street is that two of those books she just got contracted for with Tor are going to be non-romance fantasy!

[philomytha]

That sounds like something I'd enjoy, I have read a handful of KJ Charles and had fun with them, but I'd like to see her take on something more mystery-genre than romance-genre. Though the inherent KJ Charles-ness of how you can identify the villain does sound like it might be a little frustrating on the mystery side of it. And thank you for the link to the fascinating horror-and-mystery discussion!

[ceitfianna]

I enjoyed this when I read it as I've enjoyed all of her books and this makes me want to reread it while thinking on genre. As I love romance and just read a really tropey romantasy, that I liked, and be interesting to get a mystery genre vibe with some of that romance in it. Mystery and romance are really my comfort reads.

[aella_irene]

I've sort of run to the end of my ability to read KJ Charles, I know her use of tropes too well (and I keep noticing that she's very bad at writing good mothers. It was the point where the main character's mother literally drove off a cliff...) I was thinking of Death in the Spires, but also, I read the first chapter and thought "either your Two Pioneering Oxford Women or your One Pioneering Oxford Black Man can turn out to be villains", so unless this was going to be like Endless Night by Agatha Christie (I just watched a 'can I solve Christie' youtube video about it).

I know lots of people love KJ Charles! But I don't, and also, she's sometimes rude about Georgette Heyer and then rewrites her except queerer, which annoys me.

[evewithanapple]

This is the problem with being K.J. Charles: your readers have expectations, so neither your Two Pioneering Oxford Women or your One Pioneering Oxford Black Man can turn out to be villains

See, this is the interesting thing about KJ Charles: I think there was a point in her career where she was more willing/able to problematize that kind of archetype, or at least write women and nonwhite characters as people with more depth and rough edges, and then at some point she just . . . stopped doing that? I feel like her earlier books were more willing to take risks with characterization, and her later (and, perhaps crucially, traditionally published) ones have a much more "safe" approach to their marginalized characters, where they're all noble and put-upon and never do anything wrong. It's an odd turn, because it's almost like she's evolved backwards.

[whimsyful]

I think a mystery novel has succeeded when it has, a little bit, failed: the puzzle is solvable, and solved, but the problem is unsolvable, and the tension between those two things is one of the things that most interests me in a mystery book.
...That said, regardless of who the murderer is or isn't, I don't think there's a world in which K.J. Charles would ever have had anyone except the one remaining wealthy straight white man standing be the actual villain...But perhaps having written this first Mystery Shaped Book, which is so clearly cut from the same cloth as the romances, she'll have a bit more room to jump from there to something made from a different cloth as long as it's in the mystery shape. Like those games where you can match cards on either suit or number.

I think this clarified a lot of what did and didn't work for me about Death in the Spires! I've been following K. J. Charles' book reviews for a while, and we both share a taste for vintage/Golden Age mysteries (including a great fondness for Keigo Higashino), so I was really excited when I heard she was writing a mystery of that ilk instead of her usual romance.

And I liked it, but I didn't love it and I think it's because ultimately the bones of this book are cut from the same cloth as her romances, and for something with a Gaudy Night meets The Secret History setup I was expecting 1) yeah something where I can't just automatically eliminate the suspects down to the wealthy white men and 2) a more disquieting ending? Compared to Tana French's The Likeness which it also shares similarities with, or the recent Higashino I read (Invisible Helix), the ending here was just a little too neat and tidy for me. But it's very much a me thing given mystery is such a comfort reading genre!

[cleodoxa]

I think for me the appeal of the mystery genre is less about the restoration of order than the dance of the seven veils. The constant discovery of secrets and alterations of the picture is what I like, and also simply the way the structure of the mystery genre makes a collection of character portraits and an atmosphere into a novel. I don't mind much if we never actually discover the ultimate secret, though I do much prefer to know that going in. A really great mystery solution instantly turns the whole story you've just read into a different, more intriguing story that tantalises even while it delivers because it's compelling in retrospect. A lot of mystery solutions are more "Ah, yes, I see" because even when they're plausible but not overly predictable they are just the end of secrets, not the culmination of secrets.

[osprey_archer]

So, really, I suppose, I think a mystery novel has succeeded when it has, a little bit, failed: the puzzle is solvable, and solved, but the problem is unsolvable, and the tension between those two things is one of the things that most interests me in a mystery book.

Yes! This is so true for me too. To me, what makes a genre mystery is a genre mystery is that the mystery is solved, but the solution doesn't necessarily mean that order is restored with a neat little bow. Maybe we all think the victim kind of had it coming, maybe the guilty party is someone who can't be punished (either because of their wealth and power, or because although we KNOW the solution, we can't PROVE it). In some way the crime is so inextricably linked with the injustices of society that solving that specific crime doesn't solve the underlying problem.

Of course I've also enjoyed mysteries that are just a rollicking good time and don't delve into the deeper questions of "What is justice anyway?" I don't require that all my mystery novels be great. Sometimes merely good is enough.

I also enjoy mystery novels for their ability to depict people in extremis. Not only is everyone reacting to a murder, but you need to have a character so polarizing that there are multiple people who might legitimately want them dead. It gives them a wider emotional range than many other books have.

[obopolsk]

So, really, I suppose, I think a mystery novel has succeeded when it has, a little bit, failed: the puzzle is solvable, and solved, but the problem is unsolvable, and the tension between those two things is one of the things that most interests me in a mystery book.

Huh, maybe this is why so many of my favorite fictional detectives are also priests? Perhaps they're a little more willing to sit with the unsolvable problem than your standard-issue detective.