I know that’s pretty obvious but, on the other hand, if we always stick to our tried and trusted crime writers, most importantly, we won’t discover any new jewels but, at the same time, we probably won’t come across any poor ones. That’s fine, I guess, because it also means we won’t waste our money or our time on books we won’t enjoy but, in my view, you really have to experiment a bit. If you don’t, it probably makes your reading a bit restricted unless, of course, you follow my blog and others like it to find what we think are reliable recommendations!
Now, I’m going to try to give you an example of a recent experience of mine where I came across a new author and tried it out, only to be disappointed. I’m not saying it was a bad book (who am I to say that, in any case) but I didn’t enjoy it and I wasted a couple of weeks with it because it took e so long to read it. It simply didn’t enthuse me. I’m not going to tell you what it was because I don’t think that would be fair but I think it’s worth talking a little about it and sharing my experience.
First of all, how did I come across it? Well, if, like me, you use a Kindle, I’m sure you get loads of recommendations based on your previous reading. I don’t try them a lot but occasionally I do although I’m yet to find anything hugely exciting amongst them. Doesn’t mean I won’t keep trying. Anyway, as you probably know, the TV personality and co-host of Pointless (BBC every evening at 5.15 if you haven’t heard of it) has recently written two pieces of detective fiction based on a group called the Thursday Murder Club. I’ve read them both and enjoyed them and I’m going to review them shortly in a post. They’ve been received very enthusiastically and I believe that Stephen Spielberg has commissioned the film rights for the first one. So, they are quite a big deal. Whether they are to everyone’s taste or not, who knows but I liked them.
So, as a result of my reading them, Amazon decided that there are other similar titles that I might like and started recommending one to me on what I would call my Kindle screen saver page. I investigated it, found it was written by a professional comedian, liked his profile, thought the story looked interesting, if a little quirky, and decided to try it. Well, I’m afraid it wasn’t for me and, to a certain extent, I’m not sure I ever found the plot! I should probably have given up and put it down to experience but I’m afraid I don’t like doing that. I feel that if an author has gone to the trouble of committing a great deal of their time and effort into writing the book, I should at least do them the courtesy of reading it. I know a number of people who wouldn’t dream of doing that and would just give up rather than waste their time. Disappointingly, although I finished it, it did take me a lot of time and meant that, for a couple of weeks, I was doing less reading than I have done for many years! I don’t know how you would have dealt with that situation but I would be interested to hear!
So, a wasted couple of weeks and a need to get back into the groove with my detective fiction! What did I do? I did what I hope you would do and what I would certainly recommend that you should do – get wired into some new books from your favourite authors! Luckily, I had three such books sitting in my Kindle library and, although you will probably wonder where I found the time, I read all the three of them in half the time it had taken me to get through my unfortunate misadventure. Just for information and because they are all great books, the three were:
- Field of Prey by John Sandford
- Bye Bye Baby by Ace Atkins
- The Dark Hours by Michael Connelly
All of these authors have featured in my posts as regular readers will know. Field of Prey is the 24th instalment of Sandford’s Lucas Davenport series and is well up to the usual standard. My only concern here is that I believe there are a total of twenty-nine so I am getting to the end – should I just go back to number one and start again? Bye Bye Baby is Ace Atkins most recent story in Robert B Parker’s Spenser series, which you know is an all-time favourite of mine. Another great representation of Robert B Parker’s creation and a real tribute to Parker that Ace Atkins manages to carry it off so well. My concern here is that the impression is being conveyed quite clearly that Spenser, Susan, Hawk and the others are all getting a bit older. Hard to tell how old but I would say into their fifties so I wonder just how long they can go on – for some time yet, I hope! Finally, The Dark Hours is the most recent episode in the Harry Bosch and Renee Ballard series. Just as with Spenser, Harry is not getting any younger, already into his early seventies and long since retired. Hard to know how much longer he can keep going although a saving grace here is that Connelly does make the suggestion at the end that there is more to come so we wait and see!
I suppose, as a final word on this post, I would just say that I am aware you may be asking yourselves ‘What was all that about?’ I’m not sure I can give you a very good explanation but one of my objectives with the blog is to share experiences. Now most of these will relate to the authors and books I want to recommend to you. At the same time, though, I was quite struck at how much my reading was affected by my misadventure. More than that, though, it was great to get back to some of my favourites and to have confirmed what I knew already, namely, that a good pice of detective fiction beats a bad bit every time!