Unholy Dying - R. T. Campbell

This is the last book of the month.  I read another of R. T. Campbell's mysteries a while ago, Bodies in a Bookshop.  I enjoyed that one, but I thought this one dragged.

There are two murders, both rather close to the beginning of the book, both by cyanide.  Both occur off the page, so there's very little action involved in either.  After the murders, Professor John Stubbs, a botanist, proceeds to puzzle out the solution, again, with very little action.  For me, that's a lot of not doing much, a lot of talking and thinking.  Because the murders take place at a scientific conference, almost anyone could be the murderer.

The characters are different in this book, except for Stubbs, the loud, portly amateur detective who likes his pint.  There's still humor, though.  The author references several well-known mystery writers, like Edgar Wallace and Agatha Christie, in passing, joking about fictional detectives.

Of the two R. T. Campbell books I've read, I prefer Bodies in a Bookshop, maybe because it starts in a bookshop.

November Books

I did better this month than last, despite feeling restless much of the time.  I started a few large books that have since been idling on a table.  But here's what I did finish:

The Lost Boy  -  Camilla Lackberg

Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd  -  Alan Bradley

The City Baker's Guide to Country Living  -  Louise Miller

Fifty Days of Solitude  -  Doris Grumbach

Bodies in a Bookshop  -  R. T. Campbell

Bear  -  Marian Engel

Turn Right at Machu Picchu  -  Mark Adams

The Princess Bride  -  William Goldman

The Skeleton Road  -  Val McDermid

Hiss and Hers  -  M. C. Beaton

You can see a trend here toward mindless reading, comfort books, things that don't require too much attention.  I started and discarded a couple of books.  Life's too short.  I can't imagine December's list will have much more depth.  We'll see.

Bodies in a Bookshop - R. T. Campbell

A little while ago, my friend Peggy reviewed another R. T. Campbell book, Unholy Dying.  She made it sound so good that I had to find a copy.  I did, and I added Bodies in a Bookshop to my order.  What reader can resist a mystery about a bookshop.

How can you not love a book that starts:  'I don't know what came over me.  It wasn't as if there were not enough books in the house to begin with.  There were books on the floor, books on all the tables, books on the beds  -  and in the beds if one wasn't careful.'  The narrator, Max Boyle, then goes out to find a book he wants to read  -  and ends up in several bookshops, with several bags of books.  Until he finds two bodies in a bookshop.  Even then, he's careful to package up the books he's found there and write his name on the package so whomever inherits the store will know to contact him about buying the books.

The mystery revolves around stolen books and prints of a certain degree of pornographic imagery.  At the same time, it's a humorous book.  'I had rarely heard a man say less at greater length.'  In addition to Max, there is his employer, Professor John Stubbs, a Scottish botanist, and Chief Inspector Reginald F. Bishop (The Bishop), of Scotland Yard.  All three collaborate to nab the killer.

I'm not one of those readers who tries to figure out who did it.  I'm happy to lazily wait for the killer to be revealed.  But I did figure this one out on page 148.  That didn't make the rest of the book uninteresting.

I liked the characters and I will go on to read Unholy Dying.