This series
is total Rachel Catnip!!! England in the 1930s, a glamorous playboy and his smart
amateur detective wife, glittering scenes, a love story that is my favourite type
full of misunderstandings and stolen gazes and two people who love each other
deeply but JUST ARE NOT COMMUNICATING and it is all very Percy and Marguerite!
I am sorry I didn't gush about them one by one but time slips by!
I really
very much devoured the books in this series and I am so sorry it took me so
long to get to talking about them with you.
They have all the deep characterization and POV remnant of Maisie Dobbs. Amory is a very pragmatic character in her
internal workings and I love seeing the world and the people she encounters
first-hand. I also don’t let myself
fall into the trap of guessing the murderer because I am too busy in the moment:
reveling in the sights and smells of a perfectly illustrated masquerade, visiting the seaside in an Agatha Christie-esque
getaway of murder and a myriad of well-developed suspects. I want to fall into the world and see it
slowly... ruminatively as Amory does. I want to see every interaction through her
eyes and experience the slow build , the mysteries, the inevitable mayhem. Inasmuch as a reader wants to slip into the
world and setting --- it is integral that they have the most winsome guide through
which to appropriate perspective. Amory is very much the type of first person
protagonist I want to spend time with.
As for
Milo, playboy about town who has the scandalous habit of tripping into the
flash of a photo lens at the wrong time, I spent the first few books trying to
cast out ideas of him like a line to water--- wanting him to be more than he is
in hopes to justify his behaviour. Then,
I realized that I didn’t need to impress my own ideas onto a character who is
just enough with his mishaps. It doesn’t need to be toward a greater purpose on
a larger stage of adventure. Part of
Amory’s development is in her understanding of Milo and the shifts in their
relationship. While the obvious Nick and
Nora Charles comparison is inevitable, I liken Amory and Milo more to Harriet and
Peter in ways--- for Weaver takes more time to examine the heart of their
relationship beyond the (and it is delightful!) banter.
So what we
have here to stir in our pot is every ingredient of the golden age of mystery:
dazzling setting, continental adventure, clothes and capers and suspects and murders-to-solve
– but what differentiates it is (something I often find when reading
contemporary published books set in the golden age) keen, beguiling
characterization. Each character---forefront
and in periphery--- are carefully developed.
And Amory and Milo –from flirting around their passion and love for each
other, to playing at amateur sleuths, to trying to figure out the best way to
hold onto what makes them complete as a couple is the deftest, most lovely study
ever. I root for this couple --- as a
reader I love the happy sigh when they cross a hurdle large or small – as much
as I love the excruciatingly slow moments ticking through their latest
misunderstanding.
If you like
Rhys Bowen or Vivian Conroy, Sayers or Christie, or Deanna Raybourn, then this is the series for
you.
2 comments:
My TBR list is growing thanks to all your recommendations
Oh, this sounds like something I would like!
Post a Comment