Simisola by Ruth Rendell

Have been out of the crime fiction loop for a while. Read a couple of Ruth Rendells ages ago and wasn't particularly impressed. Agatha Christie simply fails to hold my attention now. Sigh. The perils of growing up include becoming utterly disgusted with once-beloved authors. Simisola was a pleasant surprise. Maybe it surprised me because I didn't expect much from it. It is crime fiction that is also social commentary. Any fiction that is also social commentary will have all my attention. My PC radar will go on high alert and scan the text continuously for any political incorrectness. The minute political opinions opposed to mine are expressed, my BP will start going up and I will begin planning the scathing remarks I shall make in my blog entry about the book. The side of me that likes to lose itself in narrative has to struggle to stay above radar scanning range. Simisola didn't pose any challenges here. The author does not descend too much into stereotype at any point. The lovely, heartstopping way in which she reveals the character named Simisola, the beautiful pace of the book that doesn't sag till the end, the way characters evolve and try to exorcise the racism within them is all a treat. The story of how Britain is becoming multicultural is told naturally through the investigation of a sensitive case of a missing black girl. Some nice background reading about how this book is Rendell's first attempt to make her characters 'political' here. No wonder I stayed up till  5 a.m. to finish reading it. Though I had to wake up at eight and run to office afterwards. Ah well.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl who played with Fire and The Girl who kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson

There has been enough and more hype around the 'Millennium Trilogy' by Stieg Larsson. I intend to add to it with much joy. I finished the first and second books through the night - on two separate nights. Till four a.m. Or something. The third took two nights but it's a monster of a book. I should be given an award for super-fast reader. Really.
The stories they tell are fairly straightforward crime fiction. That the villains are mostly 'men who hate women' (the Swedish title for the first book in the series) helped me relate to the stories better, one can't help but feel a sneaking sympathy for villains who are evil for the heck of it. I can hate the villains in these books with all my feminist passion and not feel an iota of grief over their deaths. Cool, no? 

Also the heroine is...well..awesome. Lisbeth Salander fights an unjust fate thrust on her by blind institutions with a hangdog determination but that's not why I love her. She's utterly lawless but completely ethical. She lives a life bound by her particular code of ethics, not by the laws of the land. She's socially handicapped - she doesn't know how to form and hold relationships, yet there are always a few who will love her - another reason for me to relate to her. Her sexuality is fluid - she sleeps with men and women because she finds sex an enjoyable pastime, not because she has self-esteem issues or nonsense like that - one MORE reason for me to love her.

See, that's the thing. It's impossible to write hoity-toity reviews, analysing plot and character for these books. They sucked in me in, literally, and continue to have a deep, emotional hold on me.
These books have been translated from Swedish. The fact that they come from another cultural environment - unlike the annoyingly moralistic English or American crime fiction - is beautifully obvious. Highly recommended.

Agatha Christie, Hallowe'en Party

Ah...an Agatha Christie after ages and what a let down it is. Why was I ever addicted to this stuff? The writing suddenly feels clunky and inelegant. The plotting vague and much too reliant on the unexpected bit of information that pops out the author's sleeve in the very last chapter. The writing: the crafting of sentences is a skill granted to/cultivated by a few; the book is dedicated to P.G. Wodehouse, a man who possessed the skill in good measure. He was thanked for having said he likes Christie's work in one of the worst sentences in the book. Why? Why? The murderer - don't tell me you plan to read it - is a 'beautiful man' and we go overboard with the Greek references after that. We always knew she was racist and in love with stereotype, didn't we? Why does it seem more difficult to put up with now? Aaaand atleast five characters go on about how the mentally unstable are allowed to roam around, murdering the innocent, because the asylums are too full. Aaargh. From the badly crafted sentence and the over-simplified argument, good Muse deliver us.