Heaven: October Book Club: The Vinyl Detective: Written in Dead Wax
Curiosity killed
Shipmate
I read the October book, Vinyl Detectives - Written in the Dead Wax earlier this year and suggested it for a number of reasons:
The usual, sign up if interested, questions for discussion around the 20th.
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- the author, Andrew Cartmel, collaborates with Ben Aaronovitch on the Rivers of London graphic novels - and the Rivers of London book we read was popular;
- he's also been involved in Dr Who and various other TV programmes over the years;
- this book has an evocative background - West London, an area I used to know well, both geographically and the record collecting;
- he's writing about things he loves
- it was fun
The usual, sign up if interested, questions for discussion around the 20th.
[Edited the thread title.
jj-HH]
Comments
(access to Christchurch's new Central Library, Turanga, will be available on the 12th of October 💜🎈- but I'm not going in until after the school holidays
I'm hoping to hunt this book down too.
What did people think of the ideas, setting and plot of this one? And did it work having a nameless first person narrator?
I thought the search for the 'McGuffin' was fun, specially as the narrator was looking in places I know. I also liked the narrator's obsessive personality (which I wonder if he shares with the author), but as someone who lives with a coffee geek, his coffee obsession was a bit amateur.
I didn't really pick up that we didn't get his name, but I did think there seemed a bit of wishful thinking going on where women were concerned on the part of the author.
The bits that rang truest were the descriptions of the places and the obsessive nature of the record collecting. And the sense of place with a romp of a story is what amused me, as it does with the Ben Aaronovitch books,
That is, the author sat down and drew a graph with all the incidents carefully plotted on it (This is the last chapter and we have to have a final Peripeteia, so we'll bring back someone that the reader thinks is dead and hope they don't mind that I've already pulled that trick once a few chapters ago , that sort of thing) and then thought 'Now, let's give everyone a few random characteristics; so our hero's a coffee buff but is careful about drugs, and this other chap grows weed and tomatoes,' and so on.
Of its sort it's very well done, but it's no surprise to discover that the author has written episodes of Midsomer Murders as well.
A nice easy read, just like Midsomer Murders is a nice easy watch.
I'm torn between seeing if his writing improves with the next books in the series or not bothering, because I enjoyed the sense of place and some of the characterisation of the lead, particularly the geeky record collecting and discussion around jazz, but wasn't totally convinced by all of the plotting and particularly the two glamorous women getting involved with him. Although I did enjoy Tinkler coming out of his coma in shock after having the Vinyl Detective chatting about the liaison with Nevada as part of his visit, which I didn't pick up until I reread it.
The hi-fi obsession also rang true, that one I've come across, not quite the self-built kit, but detailed concern that buys a special table for the turntable that buffers vibrations from the environment and needs to connect the cables in the right direction to get the best sound. And the preference for vinyl over digital sound production.
I suspect that Agatha Christie did much the same, though of course she created her own tropes as well, such as the 'Agatha Moment' (properly the Summation Gathering) when all the suspects are brought together and the murderer is unmasked - great story-telling, but totally impractical in the real world.
In a more serious fictional vein, Thomas Hardy never gives the impression that his characters are anything other than puppets, and that he is the puppet-master. That's why he bores me rigid.
I suspect it really comes down to the author's skill at creating character as opposed to characters; if we as readers believe that someone really would behave in a particular way, then we don't notice the author's sleight-of-hand. And of course sometimes characters in books take their own authors by surprise, which is both wonderful and a liittle frightening.
There were a lot of things that didn't really make sense, why the Aryan twins were on a killing spree, what the guy in the beginning who fell off the roof had to do with all etc, but I'll be up to reading something else by him
The Aryan Twins were the descendants/inheritors of the Davenports/AMI (EMI?) - with that historic back story of early recording contracts, with the musicians losing rights to their work, being tied to exclusive contracts and not being paid royalties. Pseudonyms in jazz were common. Not sure why they were on a killing spree unless it's just the way they operated.
At least Cartmel can write coherent English, unlike George Mann who has great ideas for plots, is fairly good at dialogue and characterisation but cannot write prose. <tangent> Maybe he's improved since his first book, but I couldn't bear to read any of his subsequent works. Reading The Affinity Bridge was like listening to Les Dawson playing the piano. <\tangent>
Yes, I agree with all that (except that I've not read George Mann, so thanks for the warning). It might make a decent Sunday evening serial on the telly; indeed, bits of it seem to have been written with that at the back - or the front - of the author's mind.
Yes, for Midsomer Murders among other things. It shows, but none the worse for that.