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Book by Farrell, Maud
209 pages, Hardcover
First published July 27, 1989
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 30, 2023
A little disappointed with this book, think it had a lot of potential
July 13, 2011
One of the best murder mysteries I've read for a while.
August 9, 2024
(Somewhere between a three and a four, and I feel a little bad about erring on the side of a three).
If you want to know why I picked this up, just take a look at the cover. It's beautiful! How could I resist? The first and apparently only novel by "Maud Farrell"--a person for whom there are no google results--this is an interesting work of crime fiction.
Farrell's novel focuses on Violet, an LGBT protagonist going through a number of personal crises. Most prominently, her father, Victor, a high-profile private eye, was just brutally murdered. Violet is a tough cookie, but she's having a hard time moving on from this traumatic event. That's not the only thing that's causing her life complications. Although she's a member of a tight-knit LGBT community, she now finds herself, somewhat inexplicably, contemplating a life-long partnership with a very cis het man. When a fresh spree of violence convinces her that her father's murder has been improperly treated as a closed case by the NYPD, Violet decides to take things into her own hands. Acting as an amateur snoop, she tries to understand what her father may have been investigating before he died in order to find out who could have been responsible for his murder.
This book speeds along and concludes in a tight 200 pages. In all honesty, although it has the trappings of detective fiction, it functions more as a suspense or thriller novel. To that end, Farrell piles on a lot of relatively shocking and gothic-inspired twists and turns, including Violet's decision to infiltrate a potentially shady private mental hospital while impersonating a manic depressive. There's also some surprisingly dark backstory about Borneo during WWII as well as a shocking and kind of bonkers final twist about what Victor discovered that led to his demise. The violence, although not frequent, is pretty brutal when it occurs, so definitely don't get this twisted for some kind of "cozy" mystery.
The book's uniqueness largely stems from its author's obvious interest in higher-minded debates about gender, sexuality, art, and capitalism. She fills her book with a number of idealized NY types who are all super well-read and capable of cultured badinage typical of this time and place (NYC on the cusp of gentrification). Her choice of protagonist was especially interesting, as it seems like writing a detective novel with a lesbian hero would already risk ghettoization, especially in this time period. However, the book then resists becoming a "conventional" LGBT story given that her LGBT detective is not only BI, but also actively taking shit from her LGBT friends for "defecting" to the other side when she falls in love with a man. This is a complex and challenging topic and a bold choice for a 200 page detective novel with some frankly ridiculous genre trappings.
Thus, even though some of the cultural references are now a little dated--and the characters did some times go on a bit--I really enjoyed this read. I'm sure astute crime fiction readers will find a few plot holes and see some of Violet's actions as implausibly successful. Oh well. It's an interesting novel that shouldn't just fade into obscurity.
If you want to know why I picked this up, just take a look at the cover. It's beautiful! How could I resist? The first and apparently only novel by "Maud Farrell"--a person for whom there are no google results--this is an interesting work of crime fiction.
Farrell's novel focuses on Violet, an LGBT protagonist going through a number of personal crises. Most prominently, her father, Victor, a high-profile private eye, was just brutally murdered. Violet is a tough cookie, but she's having a hard time moving on from this traumatic event. That's not the only thing that's causing her life complications. Although she's a member of a tight-knit LGBT community, she now finds herself, somewhat inexplicably, contemplating a life-long partnership with a very cis het man. When a fresh spree of violence convinces her that her father's murder has been improperly treated as a closed case by the NYPD, Violet decides to take things into her own hands. Acting as an amateur snoop, she tries to understand what her father may have been investigating before he died in order to find out who could have been responsible for his murder.
This book speeds along and concludes in a tight 200 pages. In all honesty, although it has the trappings of detective fiction, it functions more as a suspense or thriller novel. To that end, Farrell piles on a lot of relatively shocking and gothic-inspired twists and turns, including Violet's decision to infiltrate a potentially shady private mental hospital while impersonating a manic depressive. There's also some surprisingly dark backstory about Borneo during WWII as well as a shocking and kind of bonkers final twist about what Victor discovered that led to his demise. The violence, although not frequent, is pretty brutal when it occurs, so definitely don't get this twisted for some kind of "cozy" mystery.
The book's uniqueness largely stems from its author's obvious interest in higher-minded debates about gender, sexuality, art, and capitalism. She fills her book with a number of idealized NY types who are all super well-read and capable of cultured badinage typical of this time and place (NYC on the cusp of gentrification). Her choice of protagonist was especially interesting, as it seems like writing a detective novel with a lesbian hero would already risk ghettoization, especially in this time period. However, the book then resists becoming a "conventional" LGBT story given that her LGBT detective is not only BI, but also actively taking shit from her LGBT friends for "defecting" to the other side when she falls in love with a man. This is a complex and challenging topic and a bold choice for a 200 page detective novel with some frankly ridiculous genre trappings.
Thus, even though some of the cultural references are now a little dated--and the characters did some times go on a bit--I really enjoyed this read. I'm sure astute crime fiction readers will find a few plot holes and see some of Violet's actions as implausibly successful. Oh well. It's an interesting novel that shouldn't just fade into obscurity.
June 24, 2024
3.5. I think it was well written
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews