two short lists

[tisiphone]

1) Things I didn't know existed until today.
a) Economics faculty cozy mysteries.

2) Things I could have lived without knowing existed.
a) Economics faculty cozy mysteries.

Honestly. It's awful. Absolutely chock-full of carefully explicated basic microeconomics, coupled with a dash of hackneyed intrigue. Apparently there's more than one of them too. The only slightly amusing thing so far is the author's nom de plume.

Comments

Heavens!

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

What's it called, or is it so bad that you want to hide it from the world?

Re: Heavens!

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

I should specify - it's _economics_ academic department cozy mysteries. Which is what is really making me boggle. The one I'm reading at the moment is "The Fatal Equilibrium," by Marshall Jevons.

(p.s. I love the icon!)

Thanks for the clarification

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

because there are heaps of academic mysteries floating about. Of course, many and many of them are set in English departments, though I've seen legal departments, art departments, etc. I don't think I've seen one I'd classify as a cozy, however.

Re: Thanks for the clarification

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

This one's definitely a cozy, and I'm reminded why I detest them so. I'm reminded, having gone off on this rant, of The Oxford Murders (which was a mathematics department-related one, though more interesting than this one), and I know I've read an English department one and more than one museum one. So yes, what makes this one buh-worthy is the economics department aspect. Economists are too boring to kill each other. Plus, think of the opportunity cost! Breathtakingly high.

Jane Langton even did one that was a hybrid of Music Department and Administration

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

She daringly set it at Harvard, and kept it from being boring, which takes a really deft writer. I am particularly fond of it because it centers on a performance of Handel's Messiah, and I keep finding myself singing along with it. It's The Memorial Hall Murder. Of course, Langton is quirky, and could probably manage to write a murder about an assistant professor of accountancy and make it riveting.

Re: Jane Langton even did one that was a hybrid of Music Department and Administration

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, this one's set at Harvard too, with a heaping spoonful of hallowed halls &c.

Langton mocks some of the Hallowed Halls

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

blows up one of them and has the temerity to have the homeless camping out on the quad. Oh, you get a certain feeling of affection here and there, but there's no treating of the place as a Great Temple of Learning. She sets several books there at least in part, and manages to be offhand with Oxford as well.

[tamidon.livejournal.com]

it's got to be better than the murder mysteries that have recipes intertwined with the story

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

I did read an Ian Fleming Bond novel once that contained a detailed recipe for the salad dressing he preferred. :)

[jenk]

Robert B Parker put recipes into the Spenser novels. Although not set off from the text as recipes, more describing how he's cooking.

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

"cozy"?

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

A cozy mystery is one that hides all the gore and ickiness behind a facade of, well, coziness. No sex, violence only obliquely, and so on. Think... Murder, She Wrote, say. Though I must say, the sleuths in most cozy mysteries are more usually spunky librarians or whatever, not amusingly dressed economists. (Who don't, in the end, actually solve a thing. Most unsatisfactory ending.)

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

Ahh, I see. Never heard the term used that way. :]