The Right Attitude to Rain (An Isabel Dalhousie mystery)

This installment breaks my cardinal rule of no spoilers. It is the first, and hopefully the last, time I will ever have to do that in order to adequately explain part of the reasoning behind my review. I have warned when the spoiler is coming and made the text of it white in an attempt to not ruin the book for a cursory reader. 

The Isabel Dalhousie books by Alexander McCall Smith, are my go-to when I need a proper cozy. The serene life of an independently wealthy, cultured Scottish philosopher and her internal musings as she attempts to lead a philosophically moral life (or justify her nosiness) is perfect for when the world seems just a bit too cruel, unforgiving, hostile, garish and uncivilized, as it certainly did last week.

Given that, and the fact that this particular installment resolves a fairly major character plot arc in the way I was hoping, this should've been one of my favorite installments.

And yet, it was my least favorite and left me feeling vaguely frustrated and unsatisfied.

Part of the reason, I suppose, is that Alexander McCall Smith was still trying to cram a mystery into a world in which the characters' lives have simply transcended that genre (as has also happened, for example, with Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs series). I don't mind reading future installments as novels, but the purported mystery not only wasn't but didn't make any real type of appearance until the last third of the book! Something about that just feels lazy to me.

Secondly, a subplot that was introduced as a rather major story arc was abandoned entirely and then wrapped up abruptly in a rather unlikely way towards the end of book in a rather shabby way.

Finally,the big twist ending surprise was such a predictable letdown.

[SPOILER FOLLOWS -- Out of sheer necessity, I assure you. I hate reveiws that give spoilers and as a general rule never do, but there is no other way to further explain my feelings about this book.] 

<spoiler> Here you have Isabel Dalhousie, an independent, intelligent 42-year-old woman with a 24-year-old, handsome, "gentle" man who is in love with her. She finds the strength and courage to pursue him and get her man, finding love again. Fantastic! How empowering and refreshing to see a character that isn't sexually dead after thirty! 

And what does McCall Smith do? He impregnates her. Because of course the only thing "missing" from her life has to be a baby, right? Some of my bitterness here is personal, I freely admit that. I'm happily childfree at 35 and one of the reasons I loved Isabel was that it was awesome to have a heroine whose life didn't revolve around a husband and children and the pursuit thereof. 

I'm sure being older and having a child before Cat, her younger niece, will present complications. And a baby is not going to fit well into Isabel's well-ordered, quiet and serene life, surely. But quite frankly, my real life is already surrounded by and inundated with mothers, so it's with no little disappointment I find Isabel is now going to be All About Being A Mom All The Time. </spoiler>

So, I suppose I'm being a curmudgeon about a character's evolution. But it honestly didn't feel natural for either character and feels a bit like a calculated demographics grab, quite frankly. I'll read the next installment to see where it goes, but I have to be honest: I won't be surprised if it's time for Isabel and I to, unfortunately, part ways.

Field of Blood by Denise Mina (A Paddy Meehan mystery)

Denise Mina, as I’ve mentioned in previous reviews of her work, certainly falls on the darker side of the spectrum in terms of setting, characters (even protagonists) and stories. The residents of Mina's Glasgow are often flawed in ways we can all recognize, if not relate to, and usually struggle to keep their head above water as they deal with circumstances of ethnicity, geography and, usually, class.

To read a Denise Mina novel is to see the world reflected in a brutally objective, but always compelling and artfully executed, mirror.

This would make for dreary reading were it not for her deadly wit, strangely reminiscent of Jane Austen in its often cynical social commentary.

In Field of Blood, the first installment of the Paddy Meehan series, Mina’s gift for showing how social mores and family ties ultimately control us all are in fine form, though there is less humor.

Paddy Meehan, A Glasgow native named after a real-life man wrongly convicted of murder and ultimately redeemed by the dogged work of an enterprising journalist, is a copyboy determined to become a journalist herself.

That backdrop alone – a Glasgow press room in early 1980s, when no women need apply and reporters openly drink on shift at the pub next door, long before print’s quick demise under the monolithic internet is even a speculative thought– makes for great reading in and of itself. Mina does not disappoint in who she populates the newsroom with either, as always maintaining wonderfully diverse voices for each characters (in a Mina novel, characters never sound the same, even when they're from the same neighborhood or SES). 

Still, readers of her Garnett Hill trilogy may feel, as I did, that there is something a bit rawer and less sophisticated in Mina’s writing in this book, and I wondered as I read this book if this wasn’t one of her earlier works.

Which isn't to say, in any way, one shouldn't read it. It is not to be missed. The brutal torture and murder of a toddler by two young boys is par for the course in terms of a dark subject matter. Moreover, this is one of the first book I have ever read where I was truly disturbed and unsettled within the first few pages, and I have read quite a bit of both true crime, crime reporting and fictional crime. But this murder lingered for reasons I won't say as it that would be a rather obnoxious spoiler.

For Paddy, the murder ultimately forces her to explore her ambition, her morals, her strengths and even her faith and family ties. The answers are sometimes messy, sometimes cruelly clear-cut, but all the more satisfying for that.  

American readers, myself included, may need to brush up on the social unrest in Scotland during 1981 between Catholics and Protestants and a worker’s movement, but it is not essential to be versed in these things to understand or enjoy this book. Mina, as always, will show you, whether you’re ready or not.

Before ending this review, it's worth adding a side note. Another thing that struck me about this book is that Paddy is a woman who is overweight and, naturally, trying to lose weight. As a woman who has struggled with her weight for her entire life, I have never read a more true account of what it is like to have the all-pervasive, ever-present internal dialogue of what want has/did/didn’t/shouldn’t have/will/won’t eat, each and every day. I found it refreshing and startling, and, if I am honest, it actually forced me to acknowledge how much I have allowed my own weight to be tied to my self-worth, and not for the better.

As a writer, I’m amazed at Mina’s ability to do this as, judging from her photos, she has not struggled with her weight. But perhaps she has. At any rate, I admire her courage and, honestly, it made Paddy a much more realistic character in the end. At the very least, it speaks for Mina's technical skill in crafting and maintaining character. 

So, if you’re a fan of Denise Mina to begin with, you’ll enjoy this book, but perhaps not as much as some of her others. For a series beginning though, it is a great beginning. I’m so looking forward to getting to know Paddy more in the future.