This is not a mystery, really. Yes, there is a death, and it is mysterious, but it is really more of a take on a 1960s gothic -- a woman who is an outsider goes to the strange, empty house and is surrounded by family tensions she does not understand and menaced by forces which she is only vaguely aware of, and in the end all is revealed, but not by her agency. Fraser plays with the form, certainly; Jemima Shore is no virginal ingenue but a woman in her mid or late 30s, and the brooding male figure who would normally be menacing is instead the most sympathetic of the cast of characters, but she does not do anything really interesting with it, and Jemima still faints dead away conveniently, fails to actually investigate anything, and only discovers what is happening because she walks into a trap. Rather annoying, all in all.
Tartan Tragedy. A tragedy indeed. I've read the first four chapters, got to page 36 and I hate it! Really not my thing and life is too short so I am quitting this book. It's actually an old murder series written in the 1970s... I thought it all sounded wierdly dated when I started reading it. The whole thing is a bit twee and not amazing. I couldn't care less why that guy's been killed. The Scots speak in a wierdly written Scottish dialect and it's all one step away from offering you a tin of shortbread. And the style and the main character has a taste of upper class snobbery and snooty-ness. Did I mention I haven't been enjoying this?!
