That's all beside the point, except to the extent that my being irritable with the new Blogger look might leak over into my opinions on books. You've been warned.
I think I might have liked this one better, actually. I find that mysteries often tend to ramble as the investigators pursue red herrings. I felt like this one kept moving forward--I never felt like I didn't know why we hadn't moved along to the next thing yet. It's the old fashioned need to talk to so many people, instead of calling them or (as on TV) sending your uniforms to canvas the area.
Brenda's other main point, which I totally see, is that the first book involved Sarah getting involved in personal relationships that had her more engaged and gave us more of a window into her personality. While there was no romantic relationship here, I actually felt like I got a lot of really interesting character exploration through Sarah's (excuse, me, Miss Tolerance's) relationships with her aunt, her friend Marianne, and her client. Her fear of trusting her aunt, her protectiveness of her client, her explorations of close friendship, her frustrations that she vents at Sir Walter--all of these fit together to give me such a good picture of Sarah Tolerance's state of mind. Somehow, I just find that really satisfying.
I keep comparing her to Maisie Dobbs, whom I've given up on entirely at this point. Sarah Tolerance wins out every time. Sarah's got so much going on inside her, and you can see how that is touched, formed, and fed back on by the things that happen around her. Really, while the mystery is pretty great, these books are all about character. The third one came out last year; I hope Robins is writing more.
1 comment:
I just didn't feel that Sarah was all that invested in anything in this book. People drop like flies around her, as a direct result of her investigation, and she doesn't really seem to care. Her aunt's betrayal, her growing friendships with Sir Walter and Marianne—it all seems to stay on the very top level of her character and not reach the heart of her at all. So it's interesting to me, but not involving.
On an entirely different note, we're rereading Cordelia's Honor, and it's better than I remember. Why haven't they made the Miles Vorkosigan books into a movie? Just imagine Peter Dinklage as Miles. *swoon*
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