Tuesday, July 15, 2014

BOOK REVIEW: Murder Past Due, by Miranda James (A Cat in the Stacks Mystery)

I didn't hate this book, but it definitely had some problems. On the one hand, I found myself speeding through it to find out what would happen next. The main character is a librarian, the victim is a successful author, and the "cat in the stacks" is a Maine coon, a breed I'm very familiar with here on the East Coast, so all of these were good elements for me. But the way they were handled was inexpert, bordering on lazy.

First of all, none of the characters was well developed at all. The main character, Charlie Harris (who is apparently a fan of author Charlaine Harris...might he have been named after her?), is a fifty-year-old archivist at a university library who has recently returned to his home town of Athena, Mississippi, boards college students at his house and takes his cat everywhere with him (literally EVERYWHERE). And know you know everything about him. What does he look like? No idea. What does he like to eat? Um...not important. Does he have any hobbies? Uh...paperwork? I'm guessing he wears sweaters year round because that seems dull to me, but I really don't know. Miranda James never bothered to tell us. Oh, but we do know that he likes the Hardy Boys and Peyton Place (PEYTON PLACE!) because apparently his cultural references are all from the 1950's and '60's for some reason.

Speaking of Miranda James, does anyone know why author Dean James (which also sounds like a fake name, to be honest) chose a woman's name as his pseudonym for this series? I thought since he has a male protagonist, it would have made more sense for him to use a male pen name, but I'm guessing he thought that female authors were more "traditional" for cozy mysteries, particularly cat cozies. It wouldn't surprise me, considering it seems like all his choices were based on what was most traditional (read: stereotypical) rather than developing any depth to his characters or stories.

Take the murder victim, for instance. Godfrey Priest is a successful mystery writer from Athena who returns home for a book signing (or something...honestly the details were a little vague). The only thing that everyone agrees on is that they hate him. Why? Because he's a jerk. How is he a jerk? Well because he is. A lot of the characters complain that they don't like his writing, but it seems more like snobbery and jealousy over his success than a reason to hate somebody as a person. Some of them are annoyed that he acts like he's "too good" for the small town because he doesn't always show up for book signings at local book stores, but if this guy is supposed to be a millionaire (we eventually learn he is worth over $100 million just from his books and movie options, which would make him one of the richest authors in the world) it's pretty damn amazing he shows up for ANY small town book signings. So the whole town can suck it, as far as I'm concerned. At no point did Miranda James make a compelling argument for Godfrey Priest's supposed jerkiness.

Not that she (sorry, he) made a compelling argument for any of the characters, one way or another. They're all so bland that not one of them seemed like a real person. Well, except maybe the cat. No, not even the cat, because James' description of a Maine coon was based entirely on wrong information. He describes the cat as being 25-30 pounds and expected to get bigger at full size. Nope. Not true. They ARE NOT THAT BIG, despite what Dean James may have heard. They're big cats, but more like 15 pounds than 25. Plus he has Diesel the cat jumping up and down from things all the time. While this may be typical of most cats, it's not typical of Maine coons. They're not jumpers. We have a lot of the breed here in Nova Scotia, and even more mixed breed versions of them (lots of extra toes amongst Nova Scotia felines!) and they don't jump nearly as much as other cats, because they're too big and prefer to stay close to the ground. And the thing about Charlie walking Diesel on a leash? Just because it could happen, doesn't mean it would. I mean, who brings their cat with them EVERYWHERE? To the bank? To work? To the grocery store? TO A FUNERAL? It's just stupid.

I said at the beginning that I didn't hate this book. That's true. But that doesn't mean I thought it was good. I did, however, think that the author could have done a lot better if he had just put more effort in. Maybe I'll read some reviews of the later books in the series to see if anyone thinks he improved.


BOOK DETAILS:
Murder Past Due (Cat in the Stacks Mystery #1)
by Miranda James (aka Dean James)
Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: August 3, 2010
View on Amazon

Source: library book sale


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