UBC #11: The House of Brass/UBC failure: Murder in the Marais

[truepenny]

UBC #11
Queen, Ellery. The House of Brass. New York: Signet-New American Library, 1969.

One of the very few EQ books (along with the Wrightsville books) that has sustained continuity with any other EQ books. Also one of the two, along with Inspector Queen's Own Case, that barely features Ellery at all; he pops out of the woodwork in the last chapter to play Grand Panjandrum and solve everything. Otherwise, it's all Richard Queen (whom I like possibly better than the character-as-written deserves, because my first exposure to Ellery Queen was the tv show, and David Wayne* charmed my socks off).

The House of Brass is an English country house mystery set in Phillipskill, New York, which is a clever trick. It goes more than a little overboard with the EQ conceit of successive solutions: detective propounds a solution which fits the facts as he knows them, someone throws a new fact at him which monkey-wrenches the whole thing, lather, rinse, repeat. You can go through three or four different murderers that way.

I enjoyed it, although unless you're also a fan of Ellery Queen, I don't think I'd recommend seeking it out.

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*OMG he was in Tubby the Tuba, of which I had a record when I was a kid that I listened to over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. ::dies of fangirl squee::

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UBC critical failure: abort | retry | take to used bookstore

Black, Cara. Murder in the Marais. New York: Soho Press, 1999.

Soho Press's crime imprint specializes (or did, since their website suggests they're moving away from this narrow rubric) in mysteries in translation and imports from Anglophone countries other than the UK, and their book designs are things of beauty. This book ... well, I made it as far as page 26.

And I can tell you what threw me. (Leaving entirely aside the bizarreries of the plot and the clumsy world-building.) Two passages. First, on page 17, our heroine is asked to empty her purse:

She dumped her cell phone, expired Metro pass, extra moden cable, two tubes of ultrablack mascara, business cards, pack of Nicorette stop-smoking gum, mini-tool set, and a well-thumbed manual on software encryption smudged with red nail polish.

Okay, the femmes among you may correct me if I'm wrong, but in my experience, it's really hard to smudge something with nail polish. You can spill nail polish on things--which is going to result in an unholy mess, not smudges--or you can brush up against things while it's drying, which results in having to redo your manicure. And that might result in smudges on a software manual, but frankly any woman who would wear red nail polish on a regular basis is not going to be stupid enough to try to read a software manual while her nails are drying. It's not like lipstick. It doesn't just rub off onto other things.

Second passage, pages 25-26 (otherwise known as the final straw). The next morning, our heroine (who is not, please note, in any particular hurry) has had her morning coffee in the Café Magritte and:

Revived, she slipped twenty francs across the counter to Zazie, the owner's freckle-faced ten-year-old, who worked the cash register before school.

"Mind if I get ready for work?" she said, pulling out her battered makeup kit.

Four-foot-tall Zazie stared awestruck as Aimée applied red lipstick in the mirrorlike espresso machine, ran mascara through her lashes, and outlined her large eyes with kohl pencil. She smoothed her short brown spiky hair, pinched her pale cheeks for color, and winked at Zazie.

"Buy yourself a goûter after school." She wrapped Zazie's fist around her change.

I'm awestruck, too, let me tell you. First of all, last night she only had the mascara, not a "kit." If you're going to go out of your way to mention that she carries makeup with her at all time, a little continuity wouldn't hurt. Second of all, why does her "kit" not contain rouge if it contains both mascara and eyeliner? It's not like pinching her cheeks for color is going to last out the door. And thirdly, an espresso machine? WTF? No matter how shiny it is, it's not a mirror--okay, for purposes of noticing the bad guy sneaking up behind you with a cosh, yes. For purposes of putting on makeup, not so much.

Also, Zazie is a Parisienne, working in a café across from the Louvre. Makeup is not going to be an awesome and mysterious tribal ritual to her. Well, except for the part about the espresso machine.

My suspension of disbelief foundered and sank.

Comments

[txanne.livejournal.com]

M'eeenfiiiiin! French women don't set foot outside until their toilettes are completed! They don't even put on lipstick at the table, much less the rest of it. Jeesh!

[electricland.livejournal.com]

Maybe Zazie was awestruck by the sheer gaucherie of it all?

...yeah, I got nothing. Thanks for the warning.

[vass]

UBC critical failure: abort | retry | take to used bookstore

This makes me giddy with delight.

[natlyn.livejournal.com]

Nail polish can and will come off on paper if one does not use a clear topcoat. However, I'd call the resulting marks more along the lines of little red welts or streaks rather than smudges.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

It just doesn't smudge.

[natlyn.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

... the under-tip dab?

Oh well, I didn't have any femme cred anyway.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

It's interesting to me that little errors like the ones you analyze in that book so often occur in books that also have much deeper flaws, like unbelievable characters, improbably plots full of holes, etc. I just reviewed a very sappy, supposedly local book, and early on the there's a description of "crab traps floating in the wintry surf." Crab traps sink, they are used in deep water or in the marsh creek, not in surf, and the crabs aren't caught in winter. And the characters and plot were just about as incorrect.

[marith.livejournal.com]

...For the sake of accuracy I must confess that there are smudges of nail polish on some of my documents. This is what happens when you are seriously absent-minded and painting your nails with the pretty metallic russet color while waiting for some process to finish running, and then forgetting just how long it takes them to dry completely, and then trying to scrape off the resulting blobs with a fingernail. It all adds up to smudge.

But this Aimee is clearly supposed to be a competent femme and wouldn't do that. (Also, isn't it considered rather rude to put on makeup in public?)

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Well, and notice how long it takes to describe how you did it.

It's not a throwaway line.

[ronin-kakuhito.livejournal.com]

I think that smudged may not have been the right word, unless she tried to wipe it off of the book or something like that, but it seems reasonable for her to have used the book itself as a sort of wrist elevator while applying nail polish.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

"Streaked"? "Stained"?

I can see lipstick or blusher smudges, but that's different.

[ronin-kakuhito.livejournal.com]

speckled

[handworn.livejournal.com]

Maybe if the espresso machine has a glittery chrome finish? I imagine this as being a detail from the author's actual surroundings as this part was being written. But I've never put on makeup (except as part of my costume as the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz) so I've no idea how good the reflection needs to be.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

I've gotten smudgy nailpolish fingerprints on things.

But I am so far from competent in my femmehood that it's not even funny.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

Ohmigod I remember David Wayne!!!

[torrilin.livejournal.com]

The rouge thing is actually pretty common. But... The average chick who carries a "kit" with her will be sufficiently savvy to know powder blush Will Not Work Without Tools. And she'll *also* know that a correctly chosen lipstick shade or cream blush will work with just fingers for tools. So if you're out you may well have blush along, but it might not look like a blush.

The average makeup savvy chick will not carry two tubes of mascara with her unless she's being very careless about cleaning out her purse. You only need one open at once, and the stuff is perishable as hell, and having two open is confusing and asking for very unattractive eye infections. Stuff that expires within 2-3 months and they mean it is not a good thing to carry in your purse anyway. It might get eaten by the black hole in the bottom.

So... Our Heroine should either have an *actual* makeup kit, complete with shorthandled brushes, eyeshadow, powder, blush etc, or she should have a few idiosyncratic essentials (and for god's sake don't borrow the essentials list from a Goth unless your heroine *is* a Goth). The author tries to do two conflicting things at once and well... it doesn't work.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Nah, you lost me at the espresso machine. This is Paris, we're drinking shots of black coffee, but it's not espresso (ask an Italian) and you make it in a coffee machine.

Also, what's with the Metro pass? Can't she just buy a carnet (10 tickets) like everyone else?

Nor do I care that Zazie is four foot tall - I know she's ten, and she's going to be late for school, but do I care how tall she is? She's probably standing on something to see over the counter...