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Read Murder On Monday (2003)

Murder On Monday (2003)

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Genre
Rating
3.43 of 5 Votes: 1
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ISBN
0425192970 (ISBN13: 9780425192979)
Language
English
Publisher
berkley

Murder On Monday (2003) - Plot & Excerpts

Not the type of book I usually read (or even think about) a "cozy"--a mystery set in an English village populated by odd but lovable people who fill time and space while the protagonist--generally a woman, almost never a police officer or private detective--solves a murder while going about her normal live in the village. In Purser's series Lois Meade is cut from a different cloth than typical cozy heroine. She is a working class woman--the class divisions in semi-rural England are part of the narrative--with a family that she helps to support by working as a cleaning woman--although not in her village since her children would just die of embarrassment if their mom cleaned the house of one of their schoolmates. Her husband is a self-employed electrician who has to hustle for work from contractors and homeowners. They enjoy each other a lot although there have been complications, for example when Lois lost interest in sex for months after the birth of their third child. They have the usual difficulties and joys of raising a family, especially their daughter the oldest of the three and aching to grow up, or at least be able to drink, experiment with drugs and have sex like the other fourteen year-olds that are her friends. It is the English village mystery redone from a working class, harried parent, difficult spouse perspective. In keeping with the most basic structure of the genre Lois finds out information that the police can't get or don't see the value of and winds up pinpointing the killer.

In the past, I have read mysteries mostly by listening to them. I have a great deal of difficulty dealing with suspense in books and movies. So when I read mystery books, I often cheated and read the last chapter. Then I knew that things would turn out fine.Lately, I have tried to pick up some mystery books and actually read rather than listen. There have been a few that I read on my iPad and I enjoyed the books I have read by Charles Finch. So, when I saw this mystery by Ann Purser on the give-away shelf, I thought it looked like a good candidate for me. I very much enjoyed this story and the heroine, Lois Meade. Purser has done a good job of making Meade a believable character. She is hard-headed and quick to be angry, but people are actually like that. I like books where families are part of the story, like the Luke Thanet series and Meade would not have been so interesting if her family was not part of this book.All in all, a decent, interesting cozy mystery. If you have not read Ann Purser, you might want to try this novel since it is the first in the series.

What do You think about Murder On Monday (2003)?

You don't need to go out of your way to read this. As far as mysteries go, it got off to a slow start. About half-way through it picked up a bit and ended on a higher note. I was hoping to find another mystery series I like. I will probably read Murder on Tuesday before I make that determination.Lois Meade, house cleaner and sleuth wannabe, is the main character. I found her to be pretty bland, along with her husband, her children and her clients. As I said, it got better as it went, and hopefully the characters will develop some spunk in subsequent books.
—Lois

I wanted to like this book.I love the "cozy" style of mystery, and if the setting is English, so much the better. In those respects, this book was exactly what I expected. And I liked the notion that the amateur sleuth was a young working class mother with a working class husband.There was nothing wrong with the mystery itself. And the author even managed some brief shifts of point of view (letting us into the minds of many of the suspects and some of the other villagers) deftly. The writing was unobjectionable--not stellar, but I didn't find myself editing the grammar and language as I went along, and for a thin little paperback that is what I require.No, the problem is I don't like the amateur sleuth at the heart of the story. For all she's got some great kids, a supportive mom, and a not-perfect, but hard-working, loving husband, she's self-absorbed, quick to take offense, judgmental.... These, of course, are perfectly human attributes, and she's basically a decent human being, but I find I really don't want to spend time with her, her daughter, nor really even husband Derek. I certainly don't want to spend time with the coppers who use her to dig up information by snooping on her clients.So, that was an interesting experience, but not one I think I'll repeat with any of the successive novels. Purser's books are published by the same house that does the Susan Wittig Albert China Bayles series. I think I'll stick to those.
—Rosemary

Somebody wrote that this is British to the core. It is very British, that's for sure. I sometimes wondered if almost stereotypically so. It was an OK read. Lots of domestic details that were I think put in not so much to move the plot forward, but to try and bury the clues in detail. However, I solved the mystery well before the end. Not good. Since my brain injury, I have not figured out whodunnit before the end, not even -- until very recently and then only sporadically -- in books I've already read. So for me to solve it meant this was an easy puzzle. This would bore the usual kind of mystery reader with no reading problems, though it may be just the right cup of tea for a person who likes an easy read.
—Shireen

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