Read'n And Writin'

Reading choices are vast and these days of instant publishing makes it difficult to find a "good" book. Once a best or frequent seller, many author's send their manuscripts in and they are whacked off pretty much instantaneously. Well, perhaps I exaggerate a bit - not a lot!  The other day I was told about a "fantastic" mystery writer who did great research on one of her award-winning books, one that made her rather famous amongst book club enthusiasts. I reserved a couple of copies  and started in. On hearing that we were to visit a book talk by the famous author, I left the first book that I did have fun with and began the much touted one. Alas, it became excruciatingly obvious in the first chapter than the author had done so much research on the background behind the actual murder mystery that what began as an intriguing idea, turned into a series of "lessons" on the matter of this background issue. Every paragraph seemed to contain an explanation of the subject with terminology in place and defined. I felt as though I wanted to cross a stream but was faced with a monotonous plethora of stepping stones to get to the other side. While the plot interested me wholly, the rest of the flotsam that I had to wade through to get to the vital matter of whodunit was lost in the author's need to spread her intellectualisms throughout. Whoa, I said to myself, I am not going to take the time to be enlightened on the matter of background, I am reading a mystery novel and I want this to be a clear pathway taking me to the final denouement. I did appreciate the authors hard work in rendering her book but I wished she kept it to herself. If I wanted to know more about the subject, I could readily go on-line and do my own research.  I am reading, I said to myself, hoping somehow the author could hear,  a mystery novel, so let me get on with it. In frustration, I cheated as I always do if I shun the morass of middle blah blah,  and learned who the murderer was. Ho and hum, it was one of the "you'll never guess who dun it" sorts of endings and that, too, was a disappointment. I suppose, when you read too many formula books, this happens. Eventually, you become wise to all  the plot lines and finally decide either to write a mystery yourself or deign to read any more of them in your lifetime. But it being a nice day, and we are off to the fun of dinner and a book talk, one can't rail on about it too much. It's just another mystery novel.