I need to talk about Maeve Kerrigan - includes The Secret Room[SPOILERS] *Title edited by MNHQ*

[Zitouna]

Following recommendations from on here I’ve just read the whole Maeve Kerrigan series by Jane Casey over the Christmas holidays, and need to talk about my latest obsession!

has anyone else read them all? Happy to try and discuss without spoilers if people haven’t. They are basically brilliant police procedurals with a lot of character-driven background stuff - there are 10 main books, plus a few shorter spin offs set in the same world. The next one is out in March and I’d like to fill the gap with chat if possible!

Thoughts/predictions from me: Hoping beyond hope that the relationship stuff is resolved at least a bit in the next one, but predict more angst before it is. It might sort of ‘end’ the series - but then Casey could continue a series of the spin offs instead.

I had a question on chronology if anyone has read them all- wondering whether The Outsider (Rob spin off) is supposed to come before or after The Close? I think it matters for the relationship arc, and I can’t decide!

Exciting! What are people hoping for here?

Do I need to read Jackson Brodie? Not sure why I feel slightly reluctant - maybe because “serious novelists” don’t always make the best crime writers?

I’ve seen it highly recommended by a lot of people, but I personally hated it (or the little I read of it). I abandoned it after 80 pages or so.

^Referring to Case Histories

That’s really interesting, @Prrambulate . Can you remember what it was about it that you disliked?

I love the Jackson Brodie books (and pretty much everything else Kate Atkinson writes) but she does have a distinctive writing style so I can see why some people may not get on with her.

It felt very bleak - the characters and situations were all mean and sordid somehow. The theme of parents indifferent to or hating their children was tough going. The writing style was also too digressive and meandering for me. It felt claustrophobic, like I was dizzily enclosed in a world that I didn’t really want to be part of…

I get what you’re saying about Case Histories - I reread it recently - but it’s worth persevering, I think. The series really develops but I suspect you either like the style or you don’t. It’s quite different.

Ah right, thanks. We shall see 🙂

I’m not keen on books where absolutely everyone is dreadful. Need a few shafts of light penetrating the gloom!

In terms of other series, I recently just finished Lacey Flint by Sharon Bolton (another one people suggest) and…I don’t really know why I persevered! Has anyone else read them? It was kind of like a masterclass in how NOT to do will-they won’t-they…very disappointing in comparison to Rowling and Casey. The first one was good, second one OK, but after that it all feel apart, declined, or stagnated in different ways. The series is so highly commended though that I feel like an outlier.

I’m now reading a PD James for the first time (A Taste for Death) and the writing style feels so remedial - like a soothing balm, or a huge hug you can sink into.

There’s this quote early on that made me smile. It feels like it could have been written yesterday:

The great British public, most of whom would have been hard pressed to name three members of the Cabinet in this or any administration, were preoccupied with chasing the sun in one of the rainiest summers in recent years and took the loss of a junior minister with equanimity.

There are good characters - I can’t cope with unremittingly awful ones either! Too gloomy.
I’ll report back when I’ve finished the current one. It is quite funny so far…
@Prrambulate regarding behind the scenes in Maeve series, if it’s really emotional it could be the conference call, the hospital scene in the short story when Maeve was asleep or I wonder if it would be Josh trying to explain to Thomas why he’s leaving/can’t see him? But that’s more of a future event not a past one, so maybe not.

Sorry, cross-posted there!
I’ve downloaded a Sharon Bolton but haven’t plucked up the courage to read it! I’ve read two DI Callanach books and love the main characters but need to pause before going any further - it’s on the edge of my tolerance for gruesome! Maybe it is time to return to PD James!

I bloody hate PD James - so snobbish and she couldn’t write contemporary dialogue for toffee.

Grump grump grump. Sorry!

I’m really struggling with the gruesomeness of the DI Callanach books too, I like the main characters, but the violence level is way too much for me. I kept wondering if the author is actually a woman somehow.

@FortunataTagnips no, I think that’s fair, not grumpy at all.
Gaudy Night, though…

Sayers is snobbish and the dialogue can be weird but I love Gaudy Night!

Yes Callanch is very readable but very gruesome. My strategy has always been to just fast forward the bits when bodies are discovered/murders are committed and that solves most of the issues (I listened to them as audiobooks). I do think the first two are probably the worst in this regard.

I love Gaudy Night 😍

Actually I think Perfect Crime (#5) has some very gruesome murder reveals..definitely skip those if you get that far.

Gaudy Night is my favourite and my best. DL Sayers was an infinitely better writer than PD James. I can forgive her her snobbery because of when she was writing, whereas PDJ had less excuse.

I agree - plus just so brilliantly written - the depth of the relationships and the empathy are something else. And Wimsey is very critical of his own class. I like Harriet’s spikeyness as well - she’s definitely a forerunner of Ruth Galloway. You don’t mess with either of them. But I also like that Wolsey is tough but not macho, which is a different slant.

I discover something new every time I read Gaudy Night, and it is the standard by which I judge all crime novels and all romances, - and most books, come to think of it.

I could have written this article myself,l: https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2016/jan/06/gaudy-night-by-dorothy-l-sayers-a-weighty-novel-that-still-thrills?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other

It took a while to get into Case Histories, but I finished it, and if not enjoyed it, could admire it. I've tried twice now to start the next one but haven't got very far.

Apart from Galbraith, with whose books I am far too enmeshed to be able to judge dispassionately, my favourite contemporary crime writer at the moment is Tana French. I've not read one of hers yet that I haven't finished gasping at the quality of her writing and the subtlety of her characters' motivations, and the twistiness of her plots.

She doesn't write to make you fall in love with her characters as they fall in love with each other, though, so for that I need Peter and Harriet, Strike and Robin, Francis and Philippa and Miles and Ekaterin.

@MissdeeVine very perceptive article. I also read it first out of the sequence. It’s one of my most favourite books and I come back to it time and again. It’s still relevant, sadly, as well as being brilliant. I love your username, by the way!