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So, as I mentioned, there was this short story by Donna Andrews in the anthology I got. It was a little on the humorous side but not bad. So I went to her web page (which was referenced) to look up books by her. There appear to be two series. One starts with Murder With Peacocks and the other with You've Got Murder. (Warning - don't read the descriptions of later books in the series on the web page, unless you don't mind a spoiler or two - after reading the first two books, I realized there were some giveaways there. Luckily, I have the memory of a sieve, so I didn't figure this out before learning the data in-book anyway.)
I was a little dubious about liking her, since I am not fond of humor laid on with a trowel, which is what the series starting with Murder With Peacocks (the larger series) sounded like, and the little excerpts from the first two books bore that out. But it was possible it was only intermittent, in which case I might love it. The other sounded more promising, but if it was done mostly for humor, I was going to scream.
Right on for both thoughts. MwP is indeed done primarily for humor. It is not a bad book; it made me want to beat something, but the humor at least did have me laughing at many points. I would not want to read the rest of the series. It's overdone for my tastes. But if you like murder mysteries with a strong sense of comedy/farce about them, you might like this book. I didn't, but it surely had its moments and even I can see that. It's not a serious tale, though; don't expect that.
You've Got Murder is a much more serious story. Here, she's used her lovely touch for humor in a couple places, where appropriate, and otherwise kept it serious. I loved this book; I'll be placing a hold on Click Here For Murder, which appears to be the only other book in that series yet. Warning: large chunks of the book put Turing's thoughts and passages and observations in italics. I'm not sure of the convention since it appears to change partway thru the book. If you're not fond of italics, though, you may want to skip this one.
A quote from page 11 of You've Got Murder just because it caused me to laugh hysterically.
Turing is an artificial intelligence in the corporation's computers - mind you, they created her deliberately and know she's there. All of this you know by the time you hit this paragraph:
And you thought computer solitaire was frustrating normally...how 'bout when the computer isn't fond of you?
I was a little dubious about liking her, since I am not fond of humor laid on with a trowel, which is what the series starting with Murder With Peacocks (the larger series) sounded like, and the little excerpts from the first two books bore that out. But it was possible it was only intermittent, in which case I might love it. The other sounded more promising, but if it was done mostly for humor, I was going to scream.
Right on for both thoughts. MwP is indeed done primarily for humor. It is not a bad book; it made me want to beat something, but the humor at least did have me laughing at many points. I would not want to read the rest of the series. It's overdone for my tastes. But if you like murder mysteries with a strong sense of comedy/farce about them, you might like this book. I didn't, but it surely had its moments and even I can see that. It's not a serious tale, though; don't expect that.
You've Got Murder is a much more serious story. Here, she's used her lovely touch for humor in a couple places, where appropriate, and otherwise kept it serious. I loved this book; I'll be placing a hold on Click Here For Murder, which appears to be the only other book in that series yet. Warning: large chunks of the book put Turing's thoughts and passages and observations in italics. I'm not sure of the convention since it appears to change partway thru the book. If you're not fond of italics, though, you may want to skip this one.
A quote from page 11 of You've Got Murder just because it caused me to laugh hysterically.
Turing is an artificial intelligence in the corporation's computers - mind you, they created her deliberately and know she's there. All of this you know by the time you hit this paragraph:
Maude's boss (the Brat) had finished hunting and pecking out another unintelligible memo and was playing solitaire. Turing was rigging the cards to ensure that he never won a game. She had been doing this for six weeks now, just to see how long it took before the Brat either caught on or got tired of losing. So far, he'd lost 1,342 consecutive games. Doubtless some kind of record.
And you thought computer solitaire was frustrating normally...how 'bout when the computer isn't fond of you?
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