Abcde BLOG

I really didn't think I'd have any time to read this weekend, so I packed the Bill Crider book rather than the Michael Bond, which I'm 1/2 finished with.  Don't ask me why.  I've given up expecting my brain to make sense these days.  It does vaguely irritate me, though, that I've finished C before B.  Ah well.

For the C entry in the A-Z Mystery author challenge hosted by the Red-headed Book Child, I chose Bill Crider's Murder Among the OWLS.


This book is apparently part of a series starring Sheriff Dan Rhodes.  It is, I believe, the thirteenth such mystery.  It makes me wonder if this one is just a misstep.  I did not find this mystery particularly taxing, or particularly interesting for that matter.  It was a fun, quick read, but I figured out the murderer almost immediately.  Shamefully quickly in fact.

I chose this one from my local library just by browsing the shelves.  The premise sounds quite interesting:

It was the cat who 'told' Sheriff Dan Rhodes that something was wrong.  it ran into his house when he opened the door.  His wife, Ivy, recognized the cat as belonging to their neighbor and told Dan to go check on the widow--Helen Harris never let the cat out of the house.
When Dan finds Helen's body on her kitchen floor, there is nothing to indicate that her death wasn't an accident.  But Ivy's words ring in his head.  Why was the cat out?

The OWLS of the title are the members of the Older Women's Literary Society.  This sounds like quite a cozy mystery, and it was.  Perhaps I've just been reading too many complex mysteries lately, but I am severely disappointed when I am able to guess the killer by about 40 pages in to the novel.  It makes me wonder if all his novels are so heavy-handed.  I sure hope not.

I don't really mind when authors allude to their other books in the mysteries; Agatha Christie did it multiple times with varying degrees of success.  But with Crider, it seems almost a compulsion.  In a 261 page novel, he mentions two of his other mysteries about 10 times total.  A bit overkill it seems to me.

And the similes.  I guess I'm just a snob like that, but it seems to me that the occasional simile will strengthen a work, but ignoring powerful images and colorful language in favor of the well-used form just detracts.

Finally, I was confused by the random irrelevant conversations and details.  Perhaps if I'd read some of Crider's previous novels, I might see how they connect, but as it stands, they are rather obvious and short-lived attempts at red herrings.

I didn't dislike this book as much as the above complaints would suggest.  Rather, I was disappointed at what I consider the technical failures of a potentially good plot.  I would still recommend this book if you only want a quick Saturday read, but if you're a whodunit connoisseur, I'd skip this one.