The Big Sleep

The Big Sleep

By Raymond Chandler

As I mentioned a few posts back, I am making a concerted effort to read novels by authors I have previously ignored or, for whatever reason, passed by over the years. I'm trying to round off my reading in such a way that I have less unexplored corners and reading renowned writers who have otherwise travelled under my radar seems like the perfect way to cover a few bases. One such writer is Raymond Chandler, the detective writer extraordinaire and the grandfather of hard-boiled mysteries Chandler, along with Dashiell Hammett are single handedly responsible for the careers of a half dozen leading men in Hollywood between 1930 and 1960. Hard-boiled lingo has continued to exist right down to the present day. Chandler is certainly not a lightweight.

I admit, I was a little apprehensive about picking up a Chandler novel because, much like my first Agatha Christie, I was certain I wasn't going to like it. But I approached The Big Sleep with an open mind. Maybe I would like this one. Maybe I've read all the wrong early 206th century detective novels. Maybe this one would change everything.

Turns out, I was right. I hated it. I should listen to myself more often.

Before anyone gets mad at me, I better take this opportunity to caveat this blog post with a few reading facts about myself. First, I really don't like detective novels or mysteries in general. Rarely does a mystery hold my attention. I really have a hard time maintaining a level of concern for the intricacies of the plot. I know that connoisseurs of the genre have the ability to pinpoint definitive clues and red herrings from the prose. I'm lucky if I can maintain the direction of the general plot. Somewhere in the middle of the first act I will miss a key plot device that will leave me with one foot out the door for the rest of the novel. Obviously it goes without saying that I will not be solving any mystery before the reveal. I just can't bring myself to care.

Mystery writers are trying to outsmart their smartest, most loyal readers. They take great pains to keep the reveal a secret to the very end of the story and, therefore throw all sorts of nonsense at the reader in an effort to deflect their attention away from the important issues. I am neither smart nor loyal so I get lost in the morass of false flags, red herrings and misleading tangents. What makes it worse, I get lost and I don't care. I simply shrug my shoulders and check to see how many more pages until a chapter break so I can nod off, guilt-free.

Second, I hate hard-boiled jargon. There's opacity to the language that makes me feel like I'm standing in a crowd of investment bankers or lighting technicians or something. It makes me feel the same as when two high school friends would be talking about a new band and you ask "who?" and they look at you as if you've lived the past three seasons under a a pile of dirty wrestling tights in the school gym. There is very little in this world I hate more than exclusionary jargon whether it's street lingo or managerial nonsense. The Big Sleep is full of this sort of language.

The Big Sleep is a mystery (strike one) that is rife with exclusionary jargon (strike two). It is also interesting that The Big Sleep is not only the title of this novel but also the effect it has on the reader. It's not a long novel, but it took me over a week to read because every single time I picked it up I would drift off into a dreamless slumber after a dozen pages. I swear, I've never felt so rested as I have during the reading of this novel. I averaged about ten hours of sleep a day throughout this novel. In that sense, it is I who got the big sleep, unwittingly.

Like all of Chandler's novels, The Big Sleep centers around Detective Philip Marlowe. Marlowe is hired by aged General Sternwood to investigate something or other to do with his naughty daughters (both of which throw themselves at Marlowe through the course of the book). There is something to do with a lost husband, pornography and a half dozen murders. It all happens at the excruciating slow pace of a bad Japanese horror movie and at no point could I have given a damn. Once the mystery is revealed I had simply lost all interest in every character in the novel and couldn't wait to be rid of the book.

Now, it's not all bad or else I would have put it down long before the end. Chandler does have a way with words. If you are a lover of language (and can wade through jargon to get to the good stuff), I have to admit that Chandler has a way with similes and comparisons. and for this alone, The Big Sleep is worth the price of admission. How could it not be when you get lines like: "Her legs were as long as a couple of Dickens' novel and I read them cover to cover." (note: I made that one up because I'm too lazy to open the book and find a real example even though the book is within arms length. I just don't care enough to be precise).

And to be fair, The Big Sleep does seem a little cliched and predictable from thdays perspective simply because the story has been regurgitated in lesser forms for over half a century via film, television and parodies. It has been the subject of imitation, lampoon and homage to the point that even those who have never even heard of The Big Sleep probably know enough aspects of the story to piece it together if they so wish. But historical and stylistic context still don't excuse the lack of a compelling story, and this is where Chandler fails in my mind, no mater if it's 1933 or 2013.

All in all, The Big Sleep is similar to eating crab from the shell. It's more trouble than it's worth what with the exclusionary language and the plodding pace of the mystery (that I couldn't care less about... did I mention that yet?). Sure there is some really sumptuous morsels of goodness buried deep in the shrapnel-like shell, but it's difficult to get to and not enough of it to make it entirely worth your while.

I'll pass on any more Raymond Chandler.

Killshot

Killshot

By Elmore Leonard

Welcome!

I am in the middle of my own personal reading challenge. I didn't mention this in the previous blogpost because I was too busy getting pseudo-academic on the subject of Ernest Hemingway (I insist on using the "pseudo" prefix because A) I drink rather heavily while writing and B) even if I weren't, I rarely know what I'm talking about). It wasn't planned. It's not particularly organized and I didn't invite other bloggers to participate, though you are more than welcome to hop aboard if you wish.

From now until Christmas I plan on reading as many novels by notable authors that I have previously never read. The first in this challenge was Ernest Hemingway, an author I have somehow managed to avoid for 38 years prior to last week. Other authors officially queued up for a peek this season are Iris Murdoch, Truman Capote and Raymond Chandler. But this week I finally tackled an author I've been dying to read for a few decades: Elmore Leonard.

As I am sure I have mentioned on more than one occasion on this blog, one of my favorite sites on the web is The Onion's AV Club. For anyone who takes popular culture seriously, it is an invaluable resource for books, film, music and games, both old and new. One of my favorite columns on the AV Club is something called Gateway to Geekery, which provides step-by-step tutorials for Johnny-Come-Latelys who would like to get into the work of prolific artists. For example, perhaps you are interested in exploring Lou Reed's discography but you feel hopelessly intimidated by the sheer volume of material. Where do you start? Gateway to Geekery is there to help lest you make the mistake of picking up a copy of Metal Machine Music.

Anyway, I wish there was a Gateway to Geekery article available to anyone late to the Elmore Leonard Party because I'm pretty sure they would have advised me against reading Killshot.

Killshot is mid-career novel by Elmore Leonard. Written in 1989, it is the story of Wayne Colson and his wife, Carmen who inadvertently get caught in the middle of the shakedown of Carmen's boss. After a brief physical altercation, Wayne sends Armand Degas, an Ojibway hit man, and Richie Nix, a dim-witted loose cannon away, with their tails between their legs. Degas is a professional and knows that both Wayne and Carmen have seen their faces and could positively identify them in a police line-up. He is determined to do away with Wayne and Carmen as a measure of job security and maintained anonymity. As with any novel of this sort, the police are ineffectual. Wayne and Carmen are natually forced to take matters into their own hands.

I was expecting a fast-paced novel with lots of slick-talking characters and what I got was a slow plot that seemed unsure of where to go next. It felt as if Leonard was throwing in all sorts of half-concocted ideas and ill-formed plot lines only to abandon them before they fully materialized. While the characters are indeed strong, I found it impossible to believe that a professional such as Armand Degas would have partnered up with someone as dull-witted as Richie Nix. Degas must have known upon meeting this half-wit that doing any sort of business with him was going to end in disaster and it's not like they were forced to work together. Furthermore, Degas could have dissolved their partnership at any time. So why does he let such an unstable partner continue to live despite his erratic behavior? Degas's motivations remained concealed throughout and that weakened the novel considerably.

Furthermore, the legendary dialog that I expected from Leonard never really materialized. The dialog was by no means awful, but given what I had heard about his ability to write a conversation, I was decidedly underwhelmed. It is possible that it was built up too much prior to reading, but I found that the dialog in Killshot is a far cry from the brilliant work of Richard Price. Perhaps I picked the wrong book.

One area in which this book excels is Leonard's exploration of the theme of security. Leonard takes aim at the myth that we can insulate ourselves from crime and violence via various methods of self defense (in this case firearms and police protection but it could extend to more contemporary methods such as video surveillance, home security firms etc...). The fact of the matter is that security is a complete myth. The amount of time, money and effort we put into security does not directly translate into a more secured existence. In fact, it is impossible to protect ourselves from anything or anyone if that thing or person is determined to get you. Leonard did a fine job of expressing this from both the perspective of the terrorized Colson couple trying to protect themselves from would-be killers and Armand Degas, a professional killer trying to protect his anonymity.

Unfortunately the themes of the novel are not enough to carry the slow, meandering plot. Killshot had the makings of a decent novel but too many weird directions and loose ends makes it feel like an unfinished idea rather than a fully actualized novel. Given Elmore Leonard's reputation and his sheer volume of work, I will definitely give him another chance (though I am going to solicit recommendations before I jump into another title).

Think of Number

Think of Number

By John Verdon

Oh man, I really wanted to like this novel.

For a murder mystery novel it is compelling enough. And as debut novels go, John Verdon should be proud and I hope he does well with it and future books. I like the way this book was paced and never felt like it was dragging on. But Think Of A Number fails in a lot of fundamental ways. Here are a few:

My main problem with Think Like a Number is that Verdon sets up Dave Gurney, his main character, as the expert in hunting and catching psychopathic serial murderers. Think Clarice Starling from Silence of the Lambs. In Verdon's world, there simply isn't a cop alive better equipped to catch a killer than Dave Gurney. He's even a minor celebrity among cops on the Eastern Seaboard. Gurney's a retired cop that has lead the investigations against several high-profile serial killers. In Think Of A Number he gets dragged back into service when a series of strange notes lead to the death of a college friend. Once the crime scene is established and the investigation gets underway I assumed that Gurney was going to take the reader into the mind of the killer, tracing his motives and methods, each more cold and calculating than the first, revealing his madness a little at a time.... you know, like a good murder mystery.

The problem was that I had most things figured out long before Gurney and the cops. And on several occasions it was Gurney's wife, Madeleine, who tells him what I already knew. So much for celebrity expert in the field. My wife continuously tells me that I'm the least perceptive person in the world. I notice very little, and yet I seem to be solving a case a solid week in advance of these experts. That's inexcusable. These guys are supposed to be a professional crime unit. The reader and the retired cop's hippie wife are solving the crime faster than these chumps. Think of the lives that would have been saved if I had Kilgore Trout-ed into the book and taken over. Certainly Detective Sissek would not have perished. We could have spared Mrs. Sissek such a needless tragedy, coming only two weeks before the detective's retirement from the Wycherly Police Department. So much wasted time, fellas.

And that's another thing! Aside from Gurney and his wife, Verdon's characters seem to be merely caricatures of real people, cartoonish in their cliched existence. There's Detective Sissek, as mentioned above. He was only two weeks away from retirement, like I said. In the world of books, television and movies, all cops are within a month of retirement. Police Departments around the world should really address the problem of aging officers. Perhaps departments should give officers an inside job for their last month to avoid these all too common last month murders. Other characters include a clueless DA, a brown-nosing chief of police who insists that the murder follow a more conventional crime pattern, the requisite round peg in a square hole guy and the slightly racist but ultimately professional crime scene officer who nobody likes but everyone respects. Do police departments in America hire specifically for these particular quirks?

Another aspect in which Verdon fails is his sub-plots. He establishes several throughout the novel involving the death of his 9-year-old son, issues with his other son, on-going tension with his wife and a potential affair with an art gallery proprietor. Verdon either fails to develop these sub-plots and wraps them up clumsily in the last ten pages following the resolution of the primary story, leaves them completely unresolved, or, in one particularly galling instance involving a Gurney's burgeoning art career, forgets about it entirely. I have no problem with stories that follow a single trajectory. Writers need to know their limitations and if one story is all you can handle, fine. Do it, and do it well. Don't bite off more than you can chew. In this instance, Think Of A Number would have been better served without any sub-plots. The main plot was compelling enough to carry the reader, why bother with the other issues if you can't follow through?

And while we are on the subject of wrapping up a story, Gurney spends a lot of time toward the end of the book discussing the psychology of the killer and what was once a well-paced murder-mystery descends into a morass of psycho-babble that somehow renders his killer from perfectionist to a bumbling insane man simply by articulating his psychology. At no point previous to the killer's psychological profile did he ever make a mistake. Once we are presented with the full flower of his insanity, he becomes a complete moron. And finally, for the millionth time: If you are a killer, victory soliloquies always end badly. If committing the perfect murder is your business, shut up and do it. Never explain yourself. I can't believe I'm typing this in 2011. You'd think villains would have learned by now. I'm surprised the killer wasn't stroking his cat while divulging his secrets. The victory soliloquy is a classic blunder akin to starting a land war in Asia or going against a Sicilian when death is on the line. Don't do it!

Alas, Silence of the Lambs this is not. While I would like to wish John Verdon luck in his future writing (he really does have talent) if you are looking for a really good murder mystery and/or cop drama this summer, I will forever recommend Lush Life by Richard Price. This is perhaps the best crime drama I have read in recent years. It keeps you guessing and never disappoints. Something I really wish I could say for Think Of A Number.

Dead Famous

Dead Famous

By Ben Elton

According to Ben Elton, England is going down the tubes and it's all reality television's fault. Once a proud nation that resolutely stood up to the Nazis during the Battle of Britain and stared imminent annihilation in the face with cool determination and a stiff upper lip. British men were made of moxy and steel and their women, well, they were made of moxy and steel, too! Winston Churchill defiantly proclaimed that:

"We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."

Immortal words from one of the great modern statesmen. Britain would stand proud for another thousand years thanks to Churchill's (and Britain's) resolve.

Just a half-century later and we have an entirely different generation with entirely different values and an entirely different vocabulary. It's probably worth lamenting, if it weren't so damned funny. In Dead Famous, Ben Elton's highly improbable, post-post-modern novel about a preposterous reality television program, characters have insanely amped up names such as Woggle or Gazzer or Moon, probably don't know where to buy Winston Churchill brand cigarettes if you asked them and speak like this:

"Woggle, he da man! Da top man. Respect! But the whole show is totally wicked, so fair play to all the posse in the house. Kelly's my girl, Oojah, Oojah!"

There's a lot in that quote I really don't understand. I can't imagine that anyone, anywhere actually talks like this, but if there is, I never want to meet him or her. Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer eloquence.

Now, I should have known I wasn't going to like a book that featured characters with names like Woggle or Gazzer or Moon, especially one that centered on a third-rate reality game show called House Arrest. I despise reality TV with a passion and have never understood people's fascination with such thinly-veiled voyeurism. But, I persevered and, at the end of the day, I actually enjoyed this book for what it was, and that what it's all fookin' about, inn't? Respect!

So what gives?

I suppose the reason enjoyed this book is that it was such an over-the-top parody of reality television and didn't attempt to squeeze some sort of moral or philosophical point out of what is, ultimately, an extremely hollow genre of entertainment. I mean, anyone who stops to consider the social and cultural implications of reality television is simply going to think themselves into a considerable headache and be nowhere closer to a solution than they were an hour previous. It's lowest-common-denominator television and anyone who argues otherwise is delusional or simply dim.

Had this book taken itself even a little seriously, it would have fallen flat on its face. Instead Elton carefully portrays each of the "housemates" as the cardboard cut-outs they are: The boozer, the struggling actor looking for a break, the quiet doctor who is trying to blend into the surroundings. the lesbian, the manipulative and money-grubbing producer, the bitter evictee, and the smelly hippie anarchist that endears himself to the public. Elton's characters have about as much depth as a puddle. There are no subtle personalities and no extended networks of friends or family (only those relevant to the plot). Each character is no more than the sum of their parts as they appear on television. Single-serving characters as Edward Norton might say.

When a murder is introduced to the plot (something that would obviously send a REAL reality show to a screeching, lawsuit-addled halt), the already absurd cast of characters is thrust into improbability hyperdrive that includes attempted suicide, and a kick-boxing Irish lass. I mean, what's not to like? Had they added a fifty-foot giant iguana that terrorized London I wouldn't have batted an eyelash.

Add the impossible circumstances in which the murder takes place (in an enclosed environment littered with cameras that document the happenings in literally every corner of the house) and give each and every "housemate" a motive for killing the victim (some very flimsy motives, I might add) and you've got yourself an enjoyable, if ultimately pointless read. The wonderfully pyrrhic conclusion is worth the price of admission alone. It was so unnecessarily convoluted that I had to read it twice and it still made my head hurt, but who cares? It's reality television literature which means it's like the junk food of fiction. I'll feel bad for a few hours after finishing the book and forget the entire thing by next week (unless of course I descend into a downward spiral of junk food books and choke on my own vomit).

For the one or two people who read this blog on a regular basis, you might ask: "Why give Dead Famous a pass and Henry's Sisters such a colossal fail?"

Well, my dear reader, it was all about delivery. While Cathy Lamb wrote with all the sincerity in her entire body and failed, failed, failed, you get the impression throughout Dead Famous that Ben Elton is simply taking the piss out of our modern culture (or lack of culture). As is mentioned before if at any point in this book had Elton waxed intellectual on the state of modern pop culture and the decline of Western civilization you would be reading a blog post akin to Henry's Sisters. As it stands, he didn't and the book is every bit as vacant as you would expect. It's the difference between Zoolander and It's Pat: The Movie. One is so stupid it becomes smart parody, the other is simply stupid. There is a fine line and one that is not easily explained. I would suspect that the people who cannot tell the difference between parody and stupid are also fans of reality television.

Anyway, I've wasted enough time on this book. Let me give a closing example to prove my point about stupid-turned-funny. At a crucial point in the book when the remaining non-murdered "housemates" are sitting around chatting about God, one of the characters spews this thought-provoking sound bite of wisdom:

"I'm quite interested in Eastern religions. For instance, I reckon that Dalai Lama is a fookin' ace bloke, because with him it's all about peace and serenity, ain't it? And at the end of the day, fair play to him because I really really respect that."

Take away the annoying Britishisms and you have a Hansel quote, right there. That's comedy gold, right there, Jerry!

Wicked!

The Butcher's Boy

The Butcher's Boy

By Thomas Perry

Warning: Pretension and snobbery ahead. Proceed with caution.

The Onion's A.V. Club has a great column called The Box of Paperback Book Club where writer Keith Phipps reviews the 75 paperbacks he acquired via a cardboard box he found at a local thrift store. Most of the books are old trade paperbacks in the genre of science fiction, crime and adventure (some of which is X-rated). I thought the idea was ingenious. Reading and reviewing a box of random castoffs from a suburban household. From Heinlein to obscure curiosities of the era. All the books were published between 1960 and 1980 and I would imagine a great deal of it has gone out of print.

It was in the spirit of The Box of Paperbacks Book Club that I picked up The Butcher's Boy by Thomas Perry. An only slightly better than average crime novel about a nameless hit man evading both the mafia that wants him dead and the federal agents who have picked up his scent. The book was published in 1982 and obviously predates personal computers. It is strange to read a crime novel where characters cannot simply do their research online and have to leave contact numbers with people so that they can call each other later to compare information. No wonder the hit man has no trouble evading everyone. Aside from the dated references, it was about 15 pages into this book when I realized that Keith Phipps has his work cut out for him.

As Thomas Perry established his predictable characters, my mind began to wander from the story toward Phipps, bad fiction and the sordid world of mass-market paperbacks. What got me thinking was this: How many books like this exist? I'm talking supermarket check-out fiction. Slapdash stories that read like bad movies with worse actors. Predictable novels where the reader has things figured out a couple of hundred pages before the end of the book. Mass market paperbacks for housewives and commuters. Words for a TV generation. More bluntly: crap.

How much crap is published and where does it all go?

If there are 1000 publishing houses in America and Canada (An absurdly safe guess) each publishing an average of 1o mass-market, point-of-purchase novels per year (again, an absurdly low number), that equals 10,000 of these sorts of books hitting the (super)market each year! And I'm low-balling these numbers! I know these numbers are far larger than simple 10,000. Assume that these books have been published since the days of dime-store novels and we are talking of a staggering number of awful books.

Who buys this stuff? As the Perry's story introduced characters and sub-plots only to kill them off willy-nilly, I thought about the publishing industry a little more. Consider that when I worked in publishing (in the 1990s) the common statistic bandied about that was that 90% of all books were bought by 25% of the total population. Let's assume this is accurate, or at least close to accurate. That means 75% of all people (in North America of course) don't buy books, which presumably means they don't read many books either. Fine. That means that 25% are responsible for the purchase off ALL books from Charles Dickens, J.D. Salinger and Joseph Conrad to Dan Brown, Mitch Albom and Sophie Kinsella.

Frightening.

Given that a disproportionate amount of the publishing market is inundated with trade paperbacks a la The Butcher's Boy, we can assume that a large portion of that 25% are buying on the lower end of the quality scale. Which means that a great number of book buyers are buying their reading material from supermarkets, drugstores and gift shops.

This is highly depressing. As I continued to read about the exploits of Elizabeth Waring and her struggle to be respected in the man's world of the Justice Department, my mind descended even lower through the depths of the publishing industry.

Where does all this garbage go? As the nameless assassin wreaked havoc throughout Las Vegas and Cleveland and all points in between as if Perry was making the story up as he typed, I thought long and hard about where this stuff goes. Well, I can account for one copy of Thomas Perry's The Butcher's Boy (and I didn't pay for it, I assure you) but what about the rest? The rec rooms, garages and attics of this planet must be teeming with bad fiction, right? Well, there is probably a lot of these books around, substituting for missing coffee table legs, holding down important bills or killing innocent insects as they cross your kitchen counter. But not as many as you might think...

If a bookstore does not sell a book over the course of a year they can sell it back to the publishing house at list price. Many literary failures end their writing careers with their novels collecting dust in a publisher's warehouse, never even getting a sniff at a second printing. This is the fate of the vast majority of everything published. In the case of mass market paperbacks, which constitute the largest branch of non-educational publishing, the stores don't even have to return the book. They simply tear off the covers of the books and return those for the full cost of the book.

That's right. Mass-market paperbacks aren't even worth the paper they are printed on. That must be a humbling thought for authors who specialize in the genre. I wonder if anyone has ever bothered to ask Maeve Binchy her thoughts on that matter? Or Keith Phipps, for that matter. The majority of books are nothing more than a mediocre doorjamb or paperweight. You can learn everything you need to know about the book from its cover, which is, ironically, the most valuable part of the entire novel.

Which gets me back to The Butcher's Boy. Perry finished the novel with enough loose-ends and questions to fill a sequel (that was never written) and leaves the reader entirely unsatisfied. with the resolutions. But what more was I to expect from a novel like this? While this particular, full-intact copy of Thomas Perry's novel has somehow traveled to the farthest reaches of the planet where English novels can be found, it is still not worth the paper it is printed on. It's a good thing I have a coffee table in need of leveling. Methinks this book is going to find a second life after all.

As for me, I have reached my yearly quota of mass-market paperbacks. I cannot fathom the idea of making my way through 75 Thomas Perry novels in a row. It seems like an exercise in self-hate.

Good luck to you, Mr. Phipps. You have earned my respect and sympathy.

The Mirror Crack'd

The Mirror Crack'd

by Agatha Christie

One of my favorite columns at The Onion's AV Club is the genius Better Late Than Never where pop culture writers read or watch or listen to segments of culture they somehow missed along the way. I am flabbergasted when I see writers who have somehow missed Tron or Bill Hicks or the Breakfast Club (is that even possible!?!?!). But then I think about myself. Hell, until last week I'd never once seen Rear Window. There's all sorts of stuff I've missed over the years. And despite my love of reading, I haven't read everything.

While I do feel like I've read a good cross-section of everything from the Bible to Hunter S. Thompson to Thomas Pynchon, there still come moments when someone asks me whether I have read a book written by so-and-so and I respond in the negative.

Invariably eyebrows are raised and incredulity is expressed: "How have you not read _________ yet? Put everything down and read him/her next!"

Come to think of it, there are glaring holes in my reading. I've never read anything by Ernest Hemingway nor have I read Herman Melville. I've never finished a book written by J.R.R. Tolkien (and in this case, nor shall I ever). I've never read Lolita or Crime and Punishment or The Grapes of Wrath or Dune. I've never read H.P. Lovecraft, Edith Wharton or Ian Mcewan or Carson McCullers.

As a Canadian I've never read Hugh McLennan or Farley Mowat. Imagine that. I suspect a few Canucks out there would be screaming bloody murder for my citizenship to be rescinded.

I've not read Thornton Wilder or V.S. Naipaul or Jack London.

And until this book I had never once read Agatha Christie.

I'm not a huge fan of mysteries. I enjoy them when I read them, but I never actively search them out. I'm not the sort to try and figure out who the murderer was before the main character. I fall for red herrings and always tend to suspect the butler or the spouse. When the reveal comes, I'm always surprised.

So, for me, The Mirror Crack'd did its job. It had me guessing until the very end, and isn't that all one expects from a good murder mystery? Aside from the dated writing (and who can blame Ms. Christie for her writing style?) I was pleased with the Agatha Christie experience. I will not hesitate to go back to this well in the future.

Ryan

P.S. The butler didn't do it.