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A review by robinwalter
The Case of the Running Mouse by Christopher Bush
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.5
At one point in my wading through this story I put it down to give myself break by ironing some shirts. That's a fairly clear sign the book was not clicking with me. This is the 27th Ludovic Travers story, and the 16th I've read, and it was heavy going.
The story seemed oddly slow to get going, and Travers' first-person narrative did more 'fourth-wall' breaking than I remember from other stories, directly addressing the reader with expressions like "you know what I mean" and "you're probably wondering how I missed it"
His first foray into PI land seemed implausibly inept for a detective of his skill, the shambolic fake name a particularly power example of this clumsiness.. Add to that the fact that the first third of the story dragged so much, I wondered how he got away with wasting so much paper - which made me smile when I came across this line:
The story seemed oddly slow to get going, and Travers' first-person narrative did more 'fourth-wall' breaking than I remember from other stories, directly addressing the reader with expressions like "you know what I mean" and "you're probably wondering how I missed it"
His first foray into PI land seemed implausibly inept for a detective of his skill, the shambolic fake name a particularly power example of this clumsiness.. Add to that the fact that the first third of the story dragged so much, I wondered how he got away with wasting so much paper - which made me smile when I came across this line:
"it was war-time, and paper was rationed"
I generally enjoy Bush's writing style, flashes like this one a big part of why I stuck it out
with a face something like Garbo’s, though the last one in the world to wish to be alone
It was not an awful story, rather one that simply failed to grab me. The second of the two homicides was sad rather than evil or scary, and that leads me to the BEST thing about this book for me:
I read this book as part of "Dean Street December", a reading challenge involving books published by Dean Street Press, and their edition of this book has two features that made the reading experience worthwhile - Curtis Evans' introduction, which is more pacy and engaging than the story itself and ESPECIALLY his wonderful analysis of the societal context of the book in his afterword. THe second (and most graphic) homicide in the story was very much a product of its time, and Mr Evans' analysis of how Bush's own life and real life events of the era shaped both the writing of the story itself and the way the characters were presented was fascinating. As a murder mystery, this one was a miss for me, but thanks to Dean Streat Press and Curtis Evans, the bonus material was truly that, a real bonus that redeemed the book.