Reading: Blood and Circuses
Feb. 14th, 2018 07:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
white_hartIn what Goodreads helpfully tells me is the sixth of the Phryne Fisher mysteries, Phryne goes undercover in a circus to try to find out who or what is behind a series of accidents, while Detective Inspector Jack Robinson investigates the murder of one of the circus performers.
I wasn't actually particularly impressed by this one; Phryne turns out to be almost laughably bad at undercover work, and the mystery is only strung out as long as it is because despite knowing about the performer's murder she inexplicably doesn't compare notes with Robinson before she goes or arrange any way of sharing information while she's there and is therefore missing several key pieces of information. Away from her usual support network and life of luxury, Phryne also seems to lose a lot of her competence, even when she isn't playing the mousy part she's chosen, and while previous instalments have certainly put her in danger the threat of sexual violence here is new and unpleasant. I also miss Bert and Cec, Dot and the Butlers; only Dot even appears, and her part is much smaller than in the earlier books.
I also didn't like the sex in this book. I'm not a huge fan of sex in books generally (fade-to-black is my preference), but I appreciate Phryne as a sexually liberated woman who knows what she wants and gets it. This time round, however, I found that it made me slightly uncomfortable; I think that's partly because it was clearly so very ill-advised, plot-wise, and also because, stripped of her usual support, it felt as though Phryne was less a liberated woman acting on her attraction and more clinging desperately to sex as the one thing that remained of her normal self.
On the more positive side, I did find the circus characters interesting and would have liked to see more of them (Phryne's undercover stint only lasts a couple of days in the end), and the series continues its pattern of LGBTQ+ representation with the inclusion of trans and intersex characters. Still, this was very much my least favourite of the series so far.
I wasn't actually particularly impressed by this one; Phryne turns out to be almost laughably bad at undercover work, and the mystery is only strung out as long as it is because despite knowing about the performer's murder she inexplicably doesn't compare notes with Robinson before she goes or arrange any way of sharing information while she's there and is therefore missing several key pieces of information. Away from her usual support network and life of luxury, Phryne also seems to lose a lot of her competence, even when she isn't playing the mousy part she's chosen, and while previous instalments have certainly put her in danger the threat of sexual violence here is new and unpleasant. I also miss Bert and Cec, Dot and the Butlers; only Dot even appears, and her part is much smaller than in the earlier books.
I also didn't like the sex in this book. I'm not a huge fan of sex in books generally (fade-to-black is my preference), but I appreciate Phryne as a sexually liberated woman who knows what she wants and gets it. This time round, however, I found that it made me slightly uncomfortable; I think that's partly because it was clearly so very ill-advised, plot-wise, and also because, stripped of her usual support, it felt as though Phryne was less a liberated woman acting on her attraction and more clinging desperately to sex as the one thing that remained of her normal self.
On the more positive side, I did find the circus characters interesting and would have liked to see more of them (Phryne's undercover stint only lasts a couple of days in the end), and the series continues its pattern of LGBTQ+ representation with the inclusion of trans and intersex characters. Still, this was very much my least favourite of the series so far.
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Date: 2018-02-16 04:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-18 07:08 pm (UTC)