Ramble on

My muse is on a vacation. She's frolicking in the rolling fields of Switzerland, in the roiling fog of Scotland's Shetland, on the cobbled streets of France, in the half-secret lanes of Tuscany, and in the winding roads of my very own Darjeeling. I, on the other hand, am awaiting her return as I devour my unread pile — one murder mystery at a time. I've finished three books since my last post. Which isn't much of a brag since I spent an unnatural amount of time on one of them, and then galloped through the other two.

 

But I'll try to write about them without bugging Muse about cutting her trip short.

 

I had just started Riley Sager's 'Final Girls' when I wrote the previous post. It was my first Sager, whom I had heard and read about a lot, courtesy Instagram and the multitude of book/reader accounts I follow. Incidentally, 'Final Girls' is Sager's first book as Sager. He has other books under his real name (Todd Ritter), and under another pseudonym (Alan Finn). My guy has two whole pen names! 

 

ANYWAY, 'Final Girls' did live up to the rave reviews. It had a somewhat pseudo-likable protagonist-narrator. I found myself getting irritated with some of her decisions. But it sort of turned out okay and did not entirely ruin her life by the time the book ended. But I realise a "don't engage" attitude, although better on paper, wouldn't have moved the story forward. And I myself fail to follow this advice most of the time. 

 

Moving on to the end, the twist was unexpected. Entirely out of the blue. And I struggled to connect the dots. But it tied up the loose ends. "The conclusion maketh the book" might be an adage I try to apply to most things I read, but, sometimes, a gripping read-through can salvage a sharp twist attempting to derail the investigation in my head.

 

Next on my list was Holly Jackson's 'Good Girl, Bad Blood', a sequel to 'A Good Girl's Guide To Murder'. It was an immediate sequel — I'm sure there's a proper literary term for this, but what I mean is that it started where the first book ended. Since I'd read 'AGGGTM' many many moons ago, I had to stop and remind myself who some of the side characters were. But it wasn't a difficult job. The narrative flowed fine, and was slightly less traumatic than the first book (there was no murdered pet in this one). While the first book was about a high-school class project on a cold case — call me a fan — 'Good Girl, Bad Blood' was about a current missing incident with ties to a long-ago case. And the author introduced a podcast element, too. It kept me hooked. And it ended on a bittersweet note. I would have failed to cope had there not been a sequel primed to be read — 'As Good As Dead'. I bought both the second and third parts together after I finished 'AGGGTM'. I'm an impulse book buyer.

 

'As Good As Dead' was an interesting read. As the reader, I felt involved in the protagonist's evolution from the very first page of the first book to the pages of the third one. 'As Good As Dead' centred around personal battles as much as it did around the case(s) the protagonist got tangled in. The book was meatier in terms of things happening. And the conclusion was quite good. A nice little revenge plot always lifts my mood. The novel ended on a hopeful note. Though I prefer neatly tied-up ends, this was not a disappointment. 

 

Hopefully Jackson will write another Pip novel soon. Pip's the protagonist, the eponymous 'good girl' in the trilogy. But Jackson's written a novella ('Kill Joy' — a sort of prequel to 'AGGGTM'), and a standalone work about a group of friends stranded in an RV with a sniper on their trail titled 'Five Survive'. I don't know if I'll buy them, but then again, I didn't know I'd buy half of the books I've bought.

 

I'm now on my second Riley Sager, titled 'Last Time I Lied'. Maybe I'll write about it next. Maybe not. Who knows? Not me.

 

This has perhaps been my longest post. My muse works in a newsroom and shows no mercy to long-winded write-ups. She ruthlessly chops off redundancies and embellishments. Cuts stuff to size. More precis than elaborations. I am a rambler.