Reviews and Comments

Having enjoyed Fawcett's Emily Wilde series of course I snapped this one up. A fast, breezy read with plenty of similar features to Emily Wilde—an autistic-vibing female lead who is intensely focused on her area of interest, and a supremely magically potent male lead who is equally as fascinated as he is baffled by her and her focus.

I feel like this suffered in that Emily Wilde was an expert at the top of her field, as capable and insightful as any mortal could be, while Agnes Aubert is… not. That is, she is an expert in the field of cat rescue and care, but she begins knowing nothing of magic and not wanting to know anything, although of course she does listen and learn in what I consider the beginnings of a most satisfactory way. While I am complaining, Agnes Aubert's Mystical Cat Shelter being told in first person rather than diary format does mean we miss out on the customary chapter told from the perspective of the love interest (but this does also mean we don't get a chapter where our protagonist is incapacitated and needs rescuing, which IS a plus, it's just separately missing out on a fun excursion to a different narrative voice). And once again we have a straight couple where the much much more powerful in a way the lead can never hope to match. Maybe next time it can be the heroine who is magically potent or, better yet, lesbians? Not a super serious complaint there, I suspect I would have to look elsewhere or even learn to write it myself if I were determined to get that, but I still want to say it's on my mind.

That's a lot of grumbling. Did I enjoy this? Yes. Did I read it over just 3 days, over a span of approximately 8 focused hours? Also yes. And will I be reading any sequels as soon as I can get hold of them? Of course, and I won't regret it!

Knowing this was book that was so popular it enabled le Carré to turn to writing full-time I thought maybe this would be the one to have a happy ending, a clear and clean victory. You know, for a change. But that wouldn't have been the clear-eyed authenticity people believed they found in his novels, would it?

I was tempted to go back to Call For the Dead and see if there was anything relevant I had missed there. But it is too soon and for now I hold to my belief that those decisions were made retrospectively. If I ever do reread it I am sure the names will remind me to be alert.

On The Spy Who Came in From the Cold itself? - that had to have been on purpose, surely. too bad of a mistake otherwise - could it be? is that what they are doing? surely not! - and it wasn't; it was worse

So I can't really blame Leamas. He did his best.

I avoided reading the back cover so as not to pick up any accidental spoilers, so it took me several chapters to twig to what kind of book this was. Unlike in Call For the Dead I did not at all pick up on what lay in the hole at the centre of the centre of the story, being perhaps too caught up in looking for some clever mechanism. Also worth catching John le Carré's afterword on the English boarding school as an institution.

A Murder of Quality shows, I think, just how close a good spy story lies to the fields of the murder mystery.

Another refreshing change. I had heard that George Smiley was created in reaction against the James Bond sort of spy-hero and, having heard this, it felt correct in the reading. I was also interested to read this novel in light of comments I had seen recently comparing it favourably against Tim Powers' Declare (which I have not yet read) in its treatment of Jewish folk and communists. I doubt I would have noticed that in a relevant way without having been pointed at it, since I am still far from as perceptive a reader as I would like to become, and aside from a couple of dimensions my experience of the world remains a rather insular, privileged one.

I don't recall if I have said explicitly that my in the fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and spy fiction genres comes a lot from a joy in puzzles unfolding, a search for moments of epiphany as what was hidden becomes clear, but I believe that is so. In that regard Smiley's careful, attentive approach suits me as well as Chandler's Marlowe, and the story is told well enough that we can see where Smiley is not looking—perhaps because he does not wish to see what he would find there.

As with Chandler's novels there is a lot that goes unstated. But, unlike some more recently published mysteries I did not feel as though the author were cheating by holding information back so as to spring a surprise upon us for the conclusion. Rather it is more that the facts of the matter are laid out for us and we are left to draw the correct conclusions from them, or not, while the protagonists acts upon their conclusions until, at the climax, the state of things becomes undeniable.

Expectations fairly well met. The central twist was fairly well telegraphed from the beginning but the journey was fun and exciting. Marlowe's disdain for cops was appreciated and there were points where my attention was careless enough to be taken in by his bald-faced lies despite that I had been along for the ride every step along the way and seen exactly what he was lying about. Still fun, and I still hope to find modern detectives more like this classic, but also a long way off the brilliant shock that was The Big Sleep.

Although it is clearly drawing inspiration from Pinocchio, I still maintain the correct elevator pitch is John Connor × T-800 post-apocalypse. A sweet story, if you're the kind of person who enjoys asexual gay romance.

Last of the series so far, and what feels like the end of an arc with one of the two co-leads finishing her probationary period at the FBI.

A couple of volumes ago we had a mystery with a decidedly science fictional resolution (which has had no discernable ongoing effect on the narrative; to my surprise this series remains determinedly self-contained). This time we get a supernatural mystery, so it seems any kind of solution is valid here. At the beginning I was hoping we were getting a monster story and I don't think this really counts. Perhaps next time. Surely New Mexico must have some kind of forgotten hibernating reptile or nest of venomous pterosaurs up in the mountains that people might stumble onto.

My remarks from the prior volumes continue to hold. Clean, functional writing. Short chapters, lots of cliffhangers. The kind of book that flies by very fast. I will be reading more of them but I would hesitate to recommend them.

Toned down a bit from Diablo Mesa, but still when I take a step back and think about it, very dramatic and I want to say florid except that the writing style remains functional. Being a little more down to earth, the author's note at the end explaining this novel as having been adapted from a true story, for which their movie deal fell through, made sense to me.

I found the reference to their own work in the "underappreciated" Ice Limit IV: Wormstorm cute. Along with reference to a few classic science fiction authors that made clear to me that yes, these are indeed meant as pulpy science fiction thrillers, not constrained to the mundane.

Also appreciated that the Corrie Swanson/Homer Watts relationship thread was resolved into "yes" (and again hoping we don't see forced conflict between them in the future, but I don't expect it), as well as Agent Sharp as Corrie's new mentor. I'm hoping we get at least one more book with him as her mentor before she graduates from probation. I am also feeling like I made a good choice starting with this spin-off series instead of going direct to the main Pendergast series (who I'll note hasn't felt the need to step in for the epilogue and tie things into a bow since The Scorpion's Tail), as we get to see Corrie Swanson learn what it is like to be an FBI agent as she experiences her own first cases. I can carry that perspective back into the older series later and see how it does or does not resonate with this.

Still not a fan that we tend to get the story all the way up to a dramatic confrontation, and then once the confrontation is dealt with we get something like an epilogue summary of what was later confirmed or discovered in the fallout to the case. I realise there isn't as much tension nor drama to be had in these, and it would probably sap a lot of momentum out of the books, but I am interested in that sort of careful forensic sifting through clues to bring the true story into focus.

But they are fun and fast reads. At the time I write this there remains one more in the series published, and I'm sure it won't take me too many more days to get through it.