“I Read It So You Don’t Have To” Department
I learned many things from Bound For Murder, the 3rd scrapbooking mystery in the series by the pseudonymous Laura Childs. In the end section devoted to scrapbooking tips and recipes I discovered that you can mix mango, cilantro, olive oil with red and green peppers and call it salsa. In the rest of the book I found out that … no, wait. That’s all. Perhaps I should have been paying more attention. After all, this book is replete with scrapbooking hints sprinkled throughout the vacuous pages. For example, the same skills used in scrapbooking can be used to make place cards:
The place cards Carmela had designed for tonight were truly miniature works of art. Four-by-six-inch pieces of floral card stock served as the canvas. Upon this, Carmela had created a mini collage, incorporating tiny Renaissance-style images of angels, pressed flowers, gold hear charms, and the guest’s names printed on peach-colored vellum. She’d used a crinkle cutter to create a deckled edge at the bottom of each card. The personalized ribbon threaded through the top would be the final loving touch.
— One assumes that the “guest’s names” refers to Beelzebub, Astaroth, Mephistopheles, and so forth
Make no mistake: This is a very poorly written book. Besides the problem with apostrophes called out above — and does anyone know how to use apostrophes any longer? — the author strikes the “mother load” several times in these meaningless pages. But good grammar a good mystery does not make — though if a whodunit series based on scrapbooking can run to fifteen volumes, as this one has (so far), perhaps someone might gift us with a series based on English grammar. The ‘Gritty Grammarian’? “Putting the ‘English’ in English mysteries.” Anyone? Please.
A sudden crack of thunder and bright flash of lightning caused Carmela to jump.
Yeeow! That’s positively cataclysmic!
Feeling foolish, knowing it was just positive and negative charges cast off from the storm’s roiling clouds, Carmela glanced out the window, wondering if Ava had been shaken by nature’s heroic display, too.
— Not just an energetic small business owner with a ‘can-do’ attitude, Carmela also has an appreciation of science and stuff, too
The actual ‘mystery’ content of the story is quickly told, but I won’t spoil this tale by trying to care. At first I thought I could guess the murderer’s identity, but then I realized that what I had thought a ‘clue’ was just a stupid trick to distract the reader from the fact that nothing was actually happening save the usual onrush towards the eventual heat death of the universe. The supposed clue — the hoary old ‘victim writes in blood as he is dying’ gag — turns out to be stupid and pointless and ignored and did I say stupid? Without giving anything away — hey, people are into masochism today, you may want to read this for thrills, what do I know? — I can say that this ‘clue’ is like if a dying librarian had muttered “page 95” in the death scene chapter, which was then ignored by the protagonist for one hundred and twenty pages, briefly remembered as the protagonist reflects while on a cross-country flight that the dead librarian could have meant any one of thousands of books, and then proceeds to pull an airport novel someone has discarded in the seat pocket, turns to pg. 95 and there reads the words: “I was murdered by Bob Saget.” (No, of course not, not that Bob Saget.)
Seriously, the finale is completely whackadoodle. You realize at last that the so-called ‘investigation’ has nothing to do with the so-called ‘solution’; this author does not play fair. The close of the novel stands is the Dallas season 10 opener, except we are not allowed to wake up.
Actually, I learned some very important lessons from these 238 pages:
- I am a dope
There are fifteen — 15! — of these books out there. And a separate series about tea. And another mystery series by the same pseudonym which appears to be about eggs. Any critique I might wish to give seems rather petty and poor. Especially poor.
- I am a snob
Who am I to criticize this fantasy where not-yet divorcées get together in sisterly camaraderie (it actually derives from the Latin for bedroom, not ‘comrade’) to explore their creative impulses through the latest stamps and crinkle cutters and simply delightful papers while the protagonist’s small scrapbooking store keeps going from success to even greater success? I am a pig, a Philistine, a destroyer where these gals are creative forces for all that is good in the world.
She didn’t want to come down too hard on Lieutenant Babcock or his colleagues. Criticism and negative pronouncements had a way of discouraging people.
— Too often other detectives forget to maintain a positive outlook vis-à-vis the police
- I am not crafty
I couldn’t come up with the idea of wrapping the cover of the scrapbook in plain brown paper to highlight the delightful ironwork piece that mirrors the sconces pictured therein. *Sigh* Perhaps some day I may become a perfect sage. Or at least a sage. But that day is not this day. This day I fig– no, no, sorry. Until next time, then.
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