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I reaaaally don't rate Brand as highly as some people do. There's something so mean about her writing, I think. Not just the homophobia, but the way she writes about unattractive or less intelligent or poor women.

I'm not the biggest fan of Christianna Brand in general, but oof, the homophobia in this one. And I don't remember Charlesworth being quite such an ass in the other books he features in (though I don't like him).

Yeah, I'm mostly just reading this to be completionist.

Lorac continues to be great at writing salt-of-the-earth decent characters.

This one made me sad, though; the killer was... not someone I wanted it to be.

#BirthdayBashReadathon

This book really wanted a photo of a seedy nightclub, but it'll have to put up with a nice view.

Lawyer Will is asked by a friend to step in when a young woman tries to blackmail her husband for £££. As you would expect from crime fiction, things soon get very murky.

As with the rest of the series, includes an apology / explanation re the contemporary language and attitudes.

....do you see yourself as one of those engaging but unlikely gentlemen who appear in detective fiction? Really, William, aren't you just a little vain?"

#meta

This was... okay? I was definitely curious about the mystery, but not so totally absorbed that I couldn't have lived without finding the answer. Still, I felt really meh today and this kept me interested enough to read about half of it in one go, so I think I'm just generally muted in affect today and I probably liked it.

Either way, that was my #DoubleSpin.

Oof, such a run of “so-so“ books lately. This one's a bit noirish and generally grubby-feeling. I disliked pretty much every character.

Yeah... I should've DNFed that, that was dire. Brand's usually not *awful*, but this was all her most melodramatic tendencies, a stupid romance that doesn't work, and a whole bunch of incoherence. Maybe it was meant to be a parody but that doesn't make it bearable.

I can't tell if this is just *bad* or if I'm not in the mood, but wow I am not getting on with it. I'm not a huge fan of Christianna Brand, but normally I like her work better than this.

(And possibly it's meant to be parody but even that doesn't quite feel like it lands!)

I'm a bit stalled on this one. It did nicely evoke the Welsh weather, but I'm kinda meh about how... gothic it is? I think I see what's happening already, and the melodrama (and the main character getting humiliated) just isn't my jam. Brand isn't my favourite classic crime writer in any case, I've just never quite clicked with her stuff.

(I'm sorry about all the posts today! 😬 It's really catchup for most of the week, I suppose.)