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katiethepenguin's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Blood, Hate crime, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, and Outing
ctiner7's review
3.0
A friend bought this for me not knowing it was a lesbian fiction novel. I am not into that kind of thing, but the story itself was pretty enjoyable. I think that a lot of people who are into this would enjoy it more than I did. I chose to read it because I don't judge a book before I know anything about it, and I am glad I read it. It was a very good story.
caedocyon's review
1.0
I got this at the Baltimore Free Library. Their LGBT fiction (which is mostly of 1970s-1990s vintage) is split about evenly between gay male romance novels and lesbian detective novels. That phenomenon was much more interesting to me than Murder By Tradition turned out to be.
Murder By Tradition sounds like it should involve secret societies and arcane rituals, but it's actually a very mundane Law and Order episode, set in the 1980s, with a lesbian detective and an out gay murder victim. Extremely forgettable, except the part where it's depressing to what extent an innocent or guilty verdict comes down to nothing more than whose lawyer has better sneaky lawyer tricks.
The main drama comes when the defense lawyer threatens to out Detective Kate. What'll she do?? Afterward, Kate tells her girlfriend (who is not much more than a cardboard cutout, with an obligatory awkward mid-book sex scene), the badass feminist prosecutor, and her other vaguely characterized lesbian friends This is portrayed as an inspiring stand for gay rights, which does more than any of the frizzy hairstyles to date this novel.
Murder By Tradition sounds like it should involve secret societies and arcane rituals, but it's actually a very mundane Law and Order episode, set in the 1980s, with a lesbian detective and an out gay murder victim. Extremely forgettable, except the part where it's depressing to what extent an innocent or guilty verdict comes down to nothing more than whose lawyer has better sneaky lawyer tricks.
The main drama comes when the defense lawyer
Spoiler
(who turns out to be evil and bungling for no reason beyond author laziness)Spoiler
she would have refused to answer the question if he'd asked it.pandon's review against another edition
5.0
I first read this book years ago when it was published by Naiad. I reread it a couple of years ago (before Trump). I was struck by the difference in attitudes in people who have the power (authorities, DA’s police); then and now. It’s not perfect but it’s better than it was. I loved the passion of Delafield in taking on this case by herself and the ADA especially in her closing argument.
If you haven’t read this please do. It’s based on a true story.
If you haven’t read this please do. It’s based on a true story.
bowienerd_82's review
5.0
Forrest just keeps getting better and better with every book. Painful at times, but ultimately triumphant- a fantastic book.
psalmcat's review
4.0
Good and different. It starts with a murder mystery, but quickly turns into a courtroom drama. The whole "drama" part of that comes from the fact that the victim was gay and the murderer is claiming self-defense because Well-plotted.
Spoiler
the victim--allegedly--tried to force him at knifepoint to have sex.dc60's review
1.0
The book is the story of the investigation of a crime and the prosecution of the suspect; chiefly the latter, in fact, since the suspect is found very quickly (really, it seemed almost unbelievably quickly — but I suppose most criminals are caught because they are stupid). The crime in question is the horrific slaughter of a gay man in the kitchen of his restaurant (slaughter is the word: 39 stab wounds). Detective Kate Delafield tracks down the suspect, manages to get a confession out of him (although he claims it was self-defence), and assists a DA in preparing for the trial; then we get the trial, and the verdict.
It really does all proceed exactly like that, from A to Z directly, with no surprises along the way. The book read oddly until I realised that dialogue aside it is almost wholly (more than 90%) pure visual description: this was there, she was wearing that, etc. Very flat visual description, too: none of the scenes have any atmosphere whatever. In fact, it was like reading the prose version of a screenplay, and I realised that in my head, I was seeing it as though it were a Universal TV movie from the Seventies, because not only did it feel like a screenplay manqué, it shared some of the clichés of crime TV movies. For example, there is Delafield's partner. When I picked up the book and saw that the blurb described her as a “lesbian detective” I thought she'd be likely to have a partner who was male, badly dressed and a homophobic bigot. That is exactly what her partner is like.
Oh, yes: Detective Delafield is a lesbian. She has a girlfriend, so there's a gratuitous, unconvincing sex scene. The relationship never seems remotely realistic (but, then, for realistic relationships you need well-rounded characters, and not one of the characters in this book is more than a cardboard puppet for the author to move around as the story demands). At one point, Delafield goes to a bar where she is surrounded by various lesbians (each with their own single defining characteristic, of course): it really does read like a variation on the cringeworthy "hip" scenes you used to get in so many US TV movies and crime series, except that instead of hippies, Delafield is surrounded by happy, smiling, lesbian faces (it really is presented like that). It does not remotely convince as anything that is likely to happen in the real world. Oh, and if you are alert to clichés, you will anticipate that the defence lawyer will be an acquaintance who knows she is a lesbian and try to use it against her at the trial. Oh, yes.
The point of the book is that the killer's defence is that he was defending himself, that he was overcome by fear and disgust at the dead man's gay advances. Apparently, this has actually been used in US courts as a defence (I have no idea if it has been successful), which is pretty shocking. Pointing out that this is a pile of stinking poo is A Good Thing, but the book is woefully badly written, and I don't think it actually helps the case to have the victim so flamboyantly gay that everyone who sets eyes on him knows he is gay (Delafield does when she sees his corpse; OK, her partner doesn't, but he is Stereotypical Homophobic Troglodyte Man...) — what, if he hadn't had the neon gay sign telling everyone what his sexuality was, it might have been OK for him to be killed?
I said this reminded me of US TV movies from the Seventies: specifically, it reminded me of the ones with a message: you know, the tedious ones that were never very good.
The shocking thing is, there's a series of these books; this is the fourth. How do books this bad get published?
It really does all proceed exactly like that, from A to Z directly, with no surprises along the way. The book read oddly until I realised that dialogue aside it is almost wholly (more than 90%) pure visual description: this was there, she was wearing that, etc. Very flat visual description, too: none of the scenes have any atmosphere whatever. In fact, it was like reading the prose version of a screenplay, and I realised that in my head, I was seeing it as though it were a Universal TV movie from the Seventies, because not only did it feel like a screenplay manqué, it shared some of the clichés of crime TV movies. For example, there is Delafield's partner. When I picked up the book and saw that the blurb described her as a “lesbian detective” I thought she'd be likely to have a partner who was male, badly dressed and a homophobic bigot. That is exactly what her partner is like.
Oh, yes: Detective Delafield is a lesbian. She has a girlfriend, so there's a gratuitous, unconvincing sex scene. The relationship never seems remotely realistic (but, then, for realistic relationships you need well-rounded characters, and not one of the characters in this book is more than a cardboard puppet for the author to move around as the story demands). At one point, Delafield goes to a bar where she is surrounded by various lesbians (each with their own single defining characteristic, of course): it really does read like a variation on the cringeworthy "hip" scenes you used to get in so many US TV movies and crime series, except that instead of hippies, Delafield is surrounded by happy, smiling, lesbian faces (it really is presented like that). It does not remotely convince as anything that is likely to happen in the real world. Oh, and if you are alert to clichés, you will anticipate that the defence lawyer will be an acquaintance who knows she is a lesbian and try to use it against her at the trial. Oh, yes.
The point of the book is that the killer's defence is that he was defending himself, that he was overcome by fear and disgust at the dead man's gay advances. Apparently, this has actually been used in US courts as a defence (I have no idea if it has been successful), which is pretty shocking. Pointing out that this is a pile of stinking poo is A Good Thing, but the book is woefully badly written, and I don't think it actually helps the case to have the victim so flamboyantly gay that everyone who sets eyes on him knows he is gay (Delafield does when she sees his corpse; OK, her partner doesn't, but he is Stereotypical Homophobic Troglodyte Man...) — what, if he hadn't had the neon gay sign telling everyone what his sexuality was, it might have been OK for him to be killed?
I said this reminded me of US TV movies from the Seventies: specifically, it reminded me of the ones with a message: you know, the tedious ones that were never very good.
The shocking thing is, there's a series of these books; this is the fourth. How do books this bad get published?
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