The thing with humorous books is that it's not enough for them to try to be funny, you have to find them funny of there's no point in reading them.

For me, this book tried too hard - like one of those old-style TV comedies that had weird sound-effects and lots of canned laughter.

So, I'm going to visit with Flavia De Luce again in her sixth outing, "The Dead In Their Vaulted Arches". I want to find out how her life is going to change now that her long-lost mother is returning.

This is a book that could go anywhere. Set in England in 1939, it features a woman police officer, rare at that time, and seems to pit her against a vampire in her home town.

I'm hoping the main flavour will be a cosy mystery with a little anachronistic humour folded in.

Here's an example from the first few pages:

"I never wanted to make enemies, I only wanted to be a good copper. But being a successful woman is the best way to make enemies that I know of."

This is the second M. R. C. Kasasian book and I'm pretty much done.This is everything I dislike in "comedy" shows and nothing I enjoy.  If you're a fan of unpleasant people being obnoxious and showing up other people who are more obnoxious then this is for you.  Betty herself is not a bad character and some of the people she holds close are interesting, however the twins and Dodo are unpleasant at best and I held a hope that they were either (minor spoiler)

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This is set just as World War II is breaking out and I'm also not sure how long the events were going on for and by the end I really didn't care.

I'm not going to yuck on someone elses yum but this isn't my thing, not my yum and I'm going to leave this author for others.

Yes I get it he's smart and he knows stuff but he's also an unbearable supercilious ass, so much so that I really didn't understand at the end that the heroine stayed anywhere near him. And she was way too innocent for her back story.  

The story is set in 1882 and March Middleton comes to the door of Sidney Grice's house to stay there as his ward (now yes, she has to stay until she's of age but I then started the series that follows this and she's still in that house having stayed there). When she was a little younger she was with her father in India and there are suggestions that a love affair went horribly wrong (the temptation to capitalise the H and W there were great).  She's smart but Sidney is smarter and he never explains himself or tells people why his conclusions are right, which puts March in danger more than once.  The crime is twisty and messy and the outcome features some deus ex machina.  I was left feeling unsatisfied and wanting more.

Thanks to my friends (Katie, I'm talking to you!) over at Pegasus Books, I was able to get my hands on the latest installment to The Gower Street Detective series before publication (April 11th aka my birthday). Sidney Grice and his plucky assistant, March Middleton, are at it again in The Secrets of Gaslight Lane where they are tasked with solving not one but two locked room murders perpetrated in the same house several years apart. I have to caution yet again that this is not a series for anyone with a weak stomach or an aversion to overuse of adjectives and adverbs. (I think M.R.C. Kasasian possesses the most extensive vocabulary of any author I have ever read.) For those hoping for further resolution to the dramas surrounding Grice's past with March's mother and/or March's relationshiop with Inspector Pound then you're going to be fairly disappointed with this book. This is a case-heavy narrative with complicated facets and multiple characters. It's also chock full of hilarity and acerbic wit. Grice and March are definitely getting in the groove of their partnership and their back-and-forth banter (especially with clients) is delicious. This is a series I could see being re-tooled on Masterpiece Mystery and if cast correctly it would be fantastic. And as with his previous books in this series, Kasasian manages to drop a bombshell at the end which will leave readers salivating for more. 10/10 and I can't wait for Dark Dawn Over Steep House which will hopefully be out at the end of the year.