Books - Stephanie says:

I've been reading the Inspector Lynley mysteries lately despite myself.  It's all P.D. James' fault really.

See, I never used to like British fiction, especially mysteries.  They are speaking English, I know, but all the talk about "stones" and such confuses me.  Plus I could never figure out the avid discussions of the transportation routes.  I'm more a bloody knife discovered in a river with the killer's fingerprints kind of girl.

Then P.D. James entered my life.  All of a sudden, British fiction became fascinating to me.  I liked trying to figure out what was going on behind the oh so formal exterior of the characters.

Take Elizabeth George's Inspector Lynley, for example.  I met him after I finished all the P.D. James books I could get my hands on.  I didn't like him at first.  I thought him snobby and Barbara, his partner, rather rude.  By the second book, however, I had become a Deborahphile.  Deborah is a minor character in the stories, but she recurs just enough to keep me interested.  Will she ever have a baby?  Can she and Simon find happiness despite their great age difference and his bad leg?  What kind of photographs will she be taking today?  I've even softened my stance on Lynley and Barbara.  In the light of Deborah's love they aren't so bad, really.

It's funny to me that I like these books.  I used to be all about fairy tales and happy endings.  Most mysteries don't end so happily and the Lynley stories are no exception.  They are much like I imagine actual police work to be, with criminals caught but lives bent and broken in the process, never to be repaired.

It's rather depressing, yes.  I feel a round of -Cheaper By the Dozen- coming on fairly soon.