Musing Monday..Merry Murder and Mayhem

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 Monday is upon us once again, so let's look at the questions at Should Be Reading...

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Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…
• Describe one of your reading habits.
• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).
• Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are(or, aren’t) enjoying it.
 • Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up?
 • Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it.

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I been up to this week, book wise?
No pending rants, so lets take a look at what I was reading this week.

First, there was Wool, by Hugh Howey, a book I discussed in last weeks muse.
Good book, a sci-fi, post apocalyptic tale, that I would certainly recommend. Great characters, great setting, great story. And pretty well edited for a self published book.
Buy the e-book and save some money but give more to the author.

Then I read a debut novel by Lisa Ballantyne, The Guilty One, a psychological mystery set in London. Murdered child, another child on trial and a lawyer with his own troubled childhood and a deserved case of the Guilts.
Troubling, yet good ending. Another one I would recommend.

And finally, just yesterday, I started a new one, the next in a series by one of my favorite of all time writers, Elly Griffiths. This one, number 5 is called A Dying Fall, and once again the wonderful Ruth Galloway, archeologist extraordinaire, taxed single mom to an 18 month old daughter, owned by a cat and owner of a lonely cottage on the marshy coastline, is back. Can't wait to see what trouble she gets into this time.

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As you can see, two of the three are mysteries, without question, my go-to genre.
I admit it..I love them.
And it was the comment of one of the characters in The Guilty One, in fact the boy on trial, that reminded me of how popular crime and mystery tales are. At one point he is accused of having an unnatural interesting in things like blood and murder and death, and answers, as is true, that many people do. Just look at all the police and mystery stories on TV, he says.

It is a subject I have discussed before, but one I still find interesting.
Why is it that there is nothing like a cuppa tea, my favorite chair and a good case of murder and mayhem to relax me?
Part of it is, I think, that I like the challenge of trying, usually unsuccessfully, to figure out who done it. But more so is watching the battle of good and evil at play, usually with good..at least to some degree, often imperfect degree...winning. And there is no genre, in my opinion, more perfect for revealing the oh so interesting quirks and imperfections of the human race as a Big Crime. A chance to investigate the Big Questions of Life and Death .

So while I try to widen my sights, dip my toe in a bit of non fiction here, a memoir there, I always come home to a dark tale of dubiety and death to feel all cozy.

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