Three different mysteries

It's interesting how different three books in the same genre can be.

I'm juggling (or, perhaps better to say: have partially read, because I've largely given up on one) three mystery novels right now:

Seven Dead by J. Jefferson Farjeon
A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny
So Pretty a Problem by Francis Duncan.

Earlier in the summer, I kind of had to give up on Seven Dead - the themes (there was a "suicide club" apparently involved, and that's such an uncomfortable idea to me) and also the fact that it took a turn into thriller-dom where now you have a character who is maybe being pursued by someone dangerous or maybe not....and it just started to feel kind of claustrophobic, so I put it aside (which is kind of sad, because Farjeon is a good writer and I enjoyed his other novels - probably Thirteen Guests more than any other, though that one was definitely more in the mode of the classic English Country House mystery)

I started "A Trick of the Light" a little while back. I enjoyed it for a while (And I will ultimately finish it, I'm sure) but right now I find it a little rough going because of references to an attack (in an earlier novel I haven't read yet) on Gamache's team (which probably explains why one team member of the past isn't in this one....) where Gamache was injured and apparently Beauvoir was even more seriously injured. And almost worse, there was a betrayal - the security camera footage was leaked to the internet, and Gamache suspects the leaker is within the Surete de Quebec and wasn't the "hacker" it was claimed to be.

And also, the murder in this one just seems kind of ugly. I mean, I suppose all murder is, but....I feel like this one is tough sledding for me right now because of everything going on.

So a few nights ago, I switched over to "So Pretty a Problem." This is a Mordecai Tremaine mystery (apparently only five were written; this is the third I've read). Yes, there's a murder - or apparently a murder - a painter is shot, ostensibly by his wife, and ostensibly because they were "horseplaying" and he handed her the gun, told her it wasn't loaded, and asked her to pull the trigger. (I don't know a LOT about guns, but one thing I do know: never ever trust it's not loaded. You have to check yourself. And also never point it at something you do not want to shoot....)

The funny thing is - this book I can easily deal with. I'm not sure what exactly the difference is, but it might be verisimilitude - the Gamache books feel very "real." These could be real people doing their jobs and Penny just recorded what's going on. The novels are part police procedural but also tend to get deeply into the psychologies of the characters (which is what makes them interesting but also can make them hard, emotionally, at times). The Duncan books don't feel "real" in that way. Part of it is it's the "amateur sleuth" trope, and even though I don't know a lot about how police work works, I know that 'amateur sleuths' aren't a thing. And also, the characters are all slightly exaggerated - Inspector Boyce is the model of a 1930s gruff police inspector, the "lady" in this one (who is also the lead suspect, which kind of tells me she's not the guilty party) is sweet and attractive and a little helpless. Tremaine is, as always, kind of entertaining: the 60-ish bachelor former-tobacconist who now is enjoying his retirement and apparently helping the police. And he has his quirks - I've talked before of his love of "Romantic Stories" magazine, and his hopes that the Sweet Young Thing winds up with the Handsome Young Lad and all of that....I mused earlier if perhaps Tremaine was coded-gay, seeing as it WAS the 30s when these were written but now I don't think so and I wonder if maybe he's just that sort of "fellow who never grew up" (there is mention of his "childish imagination" spinning fantasies about smugglers in the Cornish caves).

I suspect there are a few people out there - I may be one - who never emotionally matured to the point of being able to support the kind of adult relationship a marriage would require, and so we're probably better off alone. (And that may be another reason why I like Tremaine: maybe a sense of kindred spirithood).

There's also a mention here of an older female character - the one the lady-in-distress is sent to stay with - and how she seemingly wants to "mother" Tremaine and yes, perhaps that's another appeal to me of the character.

Anyway. The Tremaine books feel less "real," it's easier to think of them almost as one of those "nice BBC mysteries" I've referred to or a stage-play sort of thing where you know the "murder victim" will stand up and walk off stage after the curtain closes, so you can enjoy the story. Whereas with the Gamache books, I feel more like I am reading both a write-up of a real case, and the psychological profiles of the people involved, and I admit right now it's a bit much.

I can also tell I'm feeling a "lack of control" in many areas of my life right now - some work stuff (the China partnership thing is proceeding and it's with an agricultural college, so they will want someone to go over and teach a summer soils class, and I am trying to come up with a gracious and sufficiently-forceful way to say "no I cannot do this" because I really, truly, honestly, cannot.) and worrying about my dad and worrying about other stuff at work - and I can tell that as much as I have some minor compulsions, they come out: getting up again after I've gone to bet to check to be SURE I locked the front door, things like that.

I suppose the answer is trying to live in the moment as much as possible, but I've never been good at that. I'm not sure what the answer is for me. I know these are things I have no control over and that's what makes me nuts - stuff I have control over, like being prepared for class, that I can totally do.