Book: Naked In Death by J.D. Robb

First, it’s obvious that it’s written by a romance writer (“J.D. Robb” is a pen-name of Nora Roberts)– the sex scenes are written with as much detail as the murder scenes. Since it’s the first book in a series, you’re hit over the head with the main character’s background story, which of course ties into the murder. Robb also likes to flip the point-of-view into other people’s heads with no warning. I have mixed feelings about that, because it added a lot when she went into the head of the murderer, but she showed things from the male romantic lead’s point-of-view before he was fully cleared as a suspect, and it was jarring. Despite this, I stayed up until 2am to finish the book, and I’ll be begging C to lend me the rest of the series, because the murder mystery part was just that well done.

There’s really only a couple of ways to write a mystery. The first is the classic manner, employed by Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle and probably dozens of others that I don’t even want to pick up and try because I hate the method: string the reader along until the very end and then pluck the murderer out of thin air with virtually no clues given earlier. I threw up my hands in disgust and swore off Ms. Christie afterTen Little Indians (which is now And Then There Were None in the US), in which the final reveal is done by a letter from the murderer confessing, and there was no possible way for anyone to pick up on any clues whatsoever.

The second method is to give the reader all the clues that the detective in the novel has, and let them solve the crime alongside the book’s main character. This is a balancing act, because some readers are smart and some aren’t. If your reader is yelling at the main character to figure it out already, you’ve lost them. Most readers are willing to go back a bit and go “Oh, yeeeaaaaah, I see it now” once you’ve handed them the answer, but if you don’t give them enough, you start becoming a “virtually no clues” first-method author. It’s easy to go either way.

With Naked In Death, I *knew* in my gut who did it by halfway through the book, only it didn’t make sense. I convinced myself that I was wrong, that it couldn’t be him, that he was just a red herring. So did Eve, the book’s detective. She went through a series of possibilities, and I went right along with her. In the end? It was the guy my gut said, and the pieces that didn’t make sense fell into place thanks to Eve’s (and by extension, my own) investigations. That makes for a very satisfying ending.

Book: Eleven On Top by Janet Evanovich

The latest in my “read the books I borrowed so that I can return them and get them out of the house” quest. I’d been avoiding this one too, but this time I know why– I’d borrowed Ten Big Ones at the same time and was starting to get bored with Stephanie Plum. I understand why series writers try to avoid a lot of character development, since if there’s too much, you change the character so much that it’s no longer the same character and you lose readers. The big attraction to Stephanie Plum is the bumbling bounty hunter who is way out of her league. If you let her learn too much and get better at it… there goes the major attraction. But after a while, I got really tired of the same “jump in without thinking” bullshit, and the same two-dimensional love interest(s).

Which is why I found Eleven On Top to be such a pleasant surprise. Stephanie actually LEARNS something. She does real, honest-to-god investigating instead of stumbling into the answer, though she still manages to find herself in mortal danger and in need of rescuing by the end of the book (well, I did say earlier that you can’t change TOO much without losing the spirit of the character). She still jumps in foolishly, but there’s a small conversation between smart Stephanie and stupid Stephanie beforehand, and you get the feeling that she’s making progress. Joe stops being quite so much of a stereotype, and works a little on anger management. (Actual quote: Stephanie: “You’re pretty calm about all this.” Joe: “I’m a calm kind of guy.” Stephanie: “No, you’re not. You go nuts over this stuff. You always yell when people go after me with a sledgehammer.” [That makes sense in context, honest.] Joe: “Yeah, but in the past, you haven’t liked that.” Go, Joe!)

Grandma Mazur still rocks my world. Stephanie still loses cars at an alarming rate. Ranger is still strong, silent, mysterious, and sexy. Lula is still… well, I’m hoping that in future books the character development will extend to Lula too, though in fairness she did stop and listen to Stephanie and do what she was supposed to do once near the end of the book, so that’s progress as well. I laughed more with this book than I did with any of the prior Stephanie Plum books, and it’s restored my interest in the series.