![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
#5 Platform - A Habit for Death
Jun. 4th, 2007 06:56 pmNuns and theater - well, not where I'd start a story, but...
Book #24: A Habit for Death
Author: Chuck Zito
Provenance: Mystery Lovers Bookshop in fair Verona, PA; a gift from my parents.
So, while I was in Pittsburgh recently, my parents took me out to this bookstore that specializes in mysteries. My parents, at this point, seem to expect that when I say I don't want something, it's because I'm holding back, and thus often will insist on getting me something if I seem at all interested. My book backlog is huge, slightly under 50 non-linguistics books, and so I wasn't planning on picking anything up, but it seemed impolitic to turn it down
And so I ended up A Habit for Death, which I initially picked up because Chuck Zito was the name of an actor on Oz, and I had a hard time believing he wrote a book. After inspection, it turned out to be something different, of the genre that I currently consider "Raph fiction." I was intrigued by the back of it, and so I picked it up.
Turns out, the book is pretty good. Not great, mind; the mystery isn't well-turned enough, although I think it was possible to guess it. I didn't, but I think one might have been able to. That said, there were so many people and so many things floating around, it didn't have as much of an edge as some other mysteries I've read. There was too much going on to really develop much of a feeling of suspense, or, indeed, of great investment in the murders.
But, as much as I like hard-boiled mysteries, I have no problem with those of the somewhat sillier kind, and this fit that bill nicely. The dialogue was all right, although the internal monologue parts were better. The characterization, again, wasn't tremendous, since there were too many of them around, but at least several of them did feel differentiated, and the main character felt like a person. The plot... well, like I said, I think he tried putting a bit too much in, but I've read worse.
This is probably also the most unabashedly gay book I've ever read, and I've read the Gumshoe, the Witch and the Virtual Corpse several times. This book wasn't nearly as good as that one, mind, but if you want a fun mystery, you could certainly do worse.
Next up: Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, still. I'm about a third done now.
Book #24: A Habit for Death
Author: Chuck Zito
Provenance: Mystery Lovers Bookshop in fair Verona, PA; a gift from my parents.
So, while I was in Pittsburgh recently, my parents took me out to this bookstore that specializes in mysteries. My parents, at this point, seem to expect that when I say I don't want something, it's because I'm holding back, and thus often will insist on getting me something if I seem at all interested. My book backlog is huge, slightly under 50 non-linguistics books, and so I wasn't planning on picking anything up, but it seemed impolitic to turn it down
And so I ended up A Habit for Death, which I initially picked up because Chuck Zito was the name of an actor on Oz, and I had a hard time believing he wrote a book. After inspection, it turned out to be something different, of the genre that I currently consider "Raph fiction." I was intrigued by the back of it, and so I picked it up.
Turns out, the book is pretty good. Not great, mind; the mystery isn't well-turned enough, although I think it was possible to guess it. I didn't, but I think one might have been able to. That said, there were so many people and so many things floating around, it didn't have as much of an edge as some other mysteries I've read. There was too much going on to really develop much of a feeling of suspense, or, indeed, of great investment in the murders.
But, as much as I like hard-boiled mysteries, I have no problem with those of the somewhat sillier kind, and this fit that bill nicely. The dialogue was all right, although the internal monologue parts were better. The characterization, again, wasn't tremendous, since there were too many of them around, but at least several of them did feel differentiated, and the main character felt like a person. The plot... well, like I said, I think he tried putting a bit too much in, but I've read worse.
This is probably also the most unabashedly gay book I've ever read, and I've read the Gumshoe, the Witch and the Virtual Corpse several times. This book wasn't nearly as good as that one, mind, but if you want a fun mystery, you could certainly do worse.
Next up: Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, still. I'm about a third done now.
