I've read the fourth Mrs. Murphy, Pay Dirt, which would usually prompt an Exploratory Foray, but the book itself is so lightweight it can be easily dispensed with through a single paragraph, forthwith -
A biker bursts into the historical estate of Ash Lawn in search of an old girlfriend he claims recently stole a great sum of money from him. Meanwhile, a selfish, vicious Ash Lawn volunteer named Aysha, back in town after a long, unsatisfactorily-explained absence, is making Crozet headlines for stealing a prestigious, moneyed banker out from under the nose of his former fiancée, one of Crozet's most decent citizens. The story is perhaps not as simplistic as I've described, but the conclusion is just as obvious. As for the book, it's not bad, but I can't bring myself to call it good, either - it's well-paced and an enjoyable page-turner in parts, but it's equally frustrating in other spots due to the sadly now-de rigeur heavy-handed authorial commentary addressed down the road here, and the transparency of the solution to the mystery leaves it pretty much empty.
This space is instead better expended upon a few observations about the series as a whole I feel qualified and confident enough to make at this point. I realize that, in a sense, commenting on the series "as a whole" is futile, since every new book brings sweeping, illogical change from the previous in characters, focus, and, perhaps most remarkably, quality - we've gone from flawed and clumsy with a few strong points to wonderful to rambling and pointless to by-the-book mundane over the span of four volumes. I despair at ever getting any sort of consistency out of this author. The latest volume suggests another attempt at metamorphosis, and not one for the better.
The very first sentence of Pay Dirt claims that "'cozy' was the word used most often to describe the small town of Crozet", an assertion that unavoidably evokes Pickax, the quintessential cozy cat-mystery small town of Mrs. Murphy's predecessor, template, and foremost rival. One might think this possibly unintentional, but the rest of the opening paragraph - which goes on to detail other supposed trademarks of Crozet citizens, like their zealous love of gossip and their neighborly, earthy, egalitarian demeanor - only underlines the feeling that the parallels are obviously, deliberately drawn; such adjectives as "gossipy", "earthy", and "cozy" are so inapplicable and patently false in regards to the prim, staid, tight-lipped, upscale, status-obsessed town that is Crozet that Brown's only intention in describing it thusly could be to echo readers' memories, and attendant fondness, of Pickax.
Whatever the reasons, trying to revision Crozet as a Southern Pickax is a wrong-headed decision, because cozy requires a sense of comfortable, comforting familiarity on the parts of characters, author, and readers, and Crozet as both a town and a community is a not very thoroughly-realized sense of place. Downtown Pickax, at least up until the most recent books, is so narrow and set that we can draw a map (indeed, Sharon Feaster has), the pillars of the community are well-established, and the fans thus rail when bunches of new characters and landmarks suddenly crop up without explanation, intruders on what has come to be the psychic private property of enrapt Cat Who... devotees. On the other hand, only a few individual places within the town of Crozet and its environs are vividly imagined, well-worn enough to the imagination to be considered truly cozy - Harry's farm, her post office, Market's small grocery next door - to wit, the places around which the heroine's world revolves. The bulk of Crozet itself is left undefined - that's how Brown can introduce new elements into the ongoing story so seamlessly and effortlessly, as there's so much still unexplored out there that we can believe it when new, previously unheard-of yet most assuredly important people and places pop up out of the woodwork.
Now, this is not a wrong approach at all - it's the natural outcome of centering a series around a character as opposed to a community. The winning, self-confident, caring and common-sensical Harry is the series's greatest asset, and it's only smart in this case to "brand" the books by the lead character rather than the locale. It worked quite well in Rest in Pieces and, to a lesser extent, Wish You Were Here, when Harry was showcased and lauded as a smart, well-grounded person happily defiant in the face of a status-crazed world and the Mim Sanburne mindset hadn't yet taken over. It's the attempt to repackage Brown's work as something it's not in order to copy a predecessor's success that's the bad move. (Of course, knowing Brown, this tack'll be abandoned by the next book, so I'm probably expending all this breath for nothing.)
Not, however, that there aren't actual faults in Brown's implementation of her own approach which not only also preclude her new "cozy little town" sell but interfere with the production of a good story. Readers are attached to Pickax because they feel literally acquainted with its residents; cracking open a new Cat Who... is so often described by fans as "revisiting old friends" because the Pickax townsfolk are dependable, reliable, and consistent. Brown's characterizations, Harry excepted, are anything but dependable and reliable; becoming attached to the Mrs. Murphy characters is an exercise in masochism, because they'll more than likely be completely different people in the next book.
Case in point - my own affection for Blair Bainbridge, the love interest from Rest in Pieces, "honest, sensible, and humble as I am sure no model is" (to self-plagiarize) and a perfect match for our girl. Trouble is, a natural, healthy relationship between Harry and man actually worthy of her doesn't fit into Brown's promotion of her newly-, inexplicably-adopted "Stand by Your Man" philosophy of marriage, and Harry's self-absorbed, philandering ex-husband Fair does not, um, fare well in comparison to his rival. So in order to play up Fair as cute and endearing - or at least bring his competitor down to somewhat equal footing with him - she injects Blair, previously a responsible fellow, with hints of boorish immaturity and unreliability - squirming at the thought of settling down with a homebody like Harry, commiserating with the foul biker's troubles with his wench ("I know how women are"), developing an all-consuming fixation on buying a Harley - not that buying a Harley is a bad thing in itself, but in context here, it's the epitome of Blair's Peter Pannish character change - the blasted bike interests him more than his supposed girlfriend. I've got a hint myself - tearing down other characters or having them act against type in an effort to force the audience to love another character who hasn't done anything to earn their affection only breeds resentment. While the rest of the cast has mellowed somehwat and their personality swings, though still present, are overall not as drastic this time around - I think that Brown began to sense she couldn't get away with her personality-swapping indefinitely - this lapse is teeth-grindingly grating enough to make up for it.
In addition, as a somewhat tangental but nonetheless important sidebar, there's too much hatred in Crozet, both generally- and personally-directed. You can't really name any two recurring characters who bear a deep, vicious grudge against each other in the Cat Who...s (well, perhaps Don and Susan Exbridge, but we never see any outright tiffs). Not that everyone's mentally unscathed and living in perfect harmony, but the various hurts have the muted quality of unspoken old wounds that are, if not forgotten, at least somewhat coped with. In Crozet, there are all sorts of people who viciously loathe each other, and each book is practically guaranteed to include at least one hissy feud (usually between two women) that would be properly culminated Dynasty-style, with slapfights in goopy mud puddles with the participants wearing low-cut dresses. Yeah, conflict is the heart of drama, but having to wade through so much venal, soap-opera-ish hate for hate's sake is draining and depressing; when it comes to having to deal with mean, rotten, unpleasant people, I think we all gave at the office, thanks. (The Cat Who...s are so adverse to unnecessary conflict that they couldn't bear to have a character who just *teased* Qwill a bit, June Halliburton, in the story for too long, for God's sake.)
Crozet just lacks the mutual support system at the soul of a good community. In Pickax, a person in trouble will be gossiped about, but there's a good chance the neighbors, the Handy Helpers, or some such civic-minded group will happen along to bail them out - indeed, Moose Countians were maddeningly isolationist in the early books, but one of the beautiful plot threads in the Cat Who...s was how Qwilleran eventually taught the townspeople by example through patience, compassion, and a willingness to listen to take an interest in and care for one another; regardless of the values of those around them, love is always valued by the protagonist, the author, and the story. In Crozet, unless Harry or Miranda decide to help you out, you can go hang. (Even when the gals organize to help the beleaguered ex-fiancée later in the book, it has the feel of the perfunctory busywork activity which provides the excuse for a society women's get-together rather than an earnest, heartfelt effort to assist someone in need.) Crozetans do pitch in to take great care and pride in their historical landmarks, but this stems from personal vanity concerning their distinguished heritage more than affection for their town or neighbors.
All of the above problems - the personality-switching, the saturation of malice, the lack of a sense of community spirit - share one common thread - they preclude the development of a sense of intimacy both among the characters themselves and between the reader and the characters, elements essential not only in a good cozy mystery but in - well, in almost any sort of novel in which character is an issue. This would be less of a weakness if Brown weren't so insistent on making her books ensemble pieces; if she kept true to her original method of storytelling, viewing Crozet through the eyes of Harry, the books would at least have the advantage of an unswervingly honest perspective from which to work and a likable main character to shepherd the reader through the vicious wilds of Crozet. Instead, for the past two volumes, Harry has lingered in the background ignored while Brown shoves unsympathetic characters or empty relationships onto center stage, dwelling on her most hateful creations in order to make supposedly philosophical points.
This tendency is most pronounced (and frustrating) when it comes to addressing affairs of the heart. I'm not sure Rita Mae Brown's official position on male-female relationships, a running theme for two books now, is worth dissecting, but if I try to follow it in detail, it goes like this: all men are idiots, hard-wired to be stupid, self-centered, and disloyal, so none of their indiscretions, particularly those relating to the sanctity of their marriage vows, can be held against them. Women must tolerate any treatment their husbands throw at them, however horrible or abusive, in good faith that all of it is being done out of love for them, never raising a single objection or harboring one ill thought - and they must never, ever cheat themselves, lest they suffer divine authorial retribution in the form of being put in the back of a patrol car or six feet under or reaping other suitable fruits of their wickedness by the end of the story. I can't quite make up my mind to which gender this is more hateful, though in practice, as with seemingly all situations here involving authorial judgmentalism, it's directed more against the gals than the guys.
Brown advocates her position under the umbrella of "forgiveness" - a strange virtue to champion for a woman who so revels in tawdrily and voyeuristically prying into and dwelling on the sins and vices of her characters; in context, the exhortations to judge not are about as sincere as the attempts at couples counseling on Jerry Springer. Worse yet, Brown uses Mim Sanburne as her mouthpiece, repackaging her, incredibly, as the series' moral center, never even bothering to change the contents - she's still a smug, bratty, imperious rhymes-with-witch whose sole purpose on earth is to ruin others' lives and reputations through her death grip on the Crozet social structure, only that now she gives lectures on morality between bouts of crushing the insurgent bourgeoisie beneath her calfskin heels. This incredible switch is "justified" by virtue of an off-page, perfunctorily-mentioned, never-explored bout with breast cancer which seems to exist only for the ends Brown thinks it effects. Whereas Mim was merely a pill before, now nearly every single scene with the woman incites me to the mental equivalent of cramming my fingers in my ears and la-la-laing at the top of my lungs. Condescending moralistic lecturing from an author who doesn't have sufficient knowledge of human nature to keep characterizations consistent from book to book or convincingly pair character actions with motivations isn't likely to be well-received.
With all of this, I don't understand why the series is so lauded for its "adult" character development, cited by several Cat Who... fans as the reason why the Mrs. Murphys have won their affections. God love ya, people, but I just can't see it. Individual characterizations flip-flop with absolutely no rhyme or reason, and the series's idea of romantic development is to have Blair escort Harry to a party which Fair is also attending, and have Fair edge in on Harry and bring her a drink, and have Blair come along and say NO, Harry doesn't want YOUR drink, she wants MY drink, and Fair say NO, she wants MY drink, and the two get into a fistfight while Harry screams "I HATE you ALL!!" as she runs from the room in tears, in a scene replayed approximately 1,000 times in the Archie comic books I used to read when I was ten. (Admittedly, Harry being Harry, the book does have the novel twist of our gal initially trying to punch out one of her beaus to stop the fight, but that one bright spot doesn't redeem the rest of this or the numerous other scenes that are written on this exact same level.) I mean, look at the characters Brown has chosen to champion - Mim? Fair, who, when he finally realizes he made a mistake in dumping his wife for a gold-digging bimbo, angrily reasserts a "first right of claim" over Harry, as if she were property, and blames the failure of the marriage on her supposed "insecurity" and psychological problems? Both are paragons of egotism - the same egotism espoused in Brown's poisonous rants. Meanwhile, Harry, the most adult person in the whole darn town, has hardly gotten a word in edgewise for two books now.
There are aspects of the Mrs. Murphys I very much appreciate and enjoy. I've already gone on about the general wonderfulness of Harry, and I find Melinda Hogendobber - loyal, chummy, possessing the wisdom of an elder; principled, with a slight but definite predilection for mischief - a perfect cohort for our heroine. I like Sheriff Rick and his deputy Cynthia, both as characters and in their function to the plots - collecting and examining forensic evidence, interviewing faraway witnesses, discovering and unraveling various important leads proceeding from lab work and official reports - all activities from which Harry, as a private citizen, is for the most part excluded, and all conducted somewhat separately from the main proceedings. Rick and Cynthia are developed to the point where it's as if Brown was considering making them into the leads but perhaps thought having law officers as her sleuths would be too clinical; nevertheless, they've served as excellent shadow protagonists - fair-minded, intelligent individuals and comfortable friends who transcend Brown's Mars/Venus (or whatever it is) claptrap and whose back-and-forth conversations dissecting the evidence are always delightful and rewarding for the logical mind of a mystery reader to follow. (I must give Brown due commendation here; as trite as books not only of this series but of this entire genre often are, it'd be easy to just fall back on cliché and have Rick and Cynthia be antagonistic toward her amateur sleuth. As it is, their parallel investigations complement each other quite nicely.)
I like Wendy Wray's soft and detailed pencil illustrations, Peanuts-ish in that the presence of "adults" - humans - is signified only by hands or feet in the edges of the frame, the compositions centered on the animals from whose perspective the pictures are drawn. And there is a blackly wicked sense of humor in the grotesque deaths (the biker's body is discovered by a group of kids on a nature hike) I can appreciate. As aforementioned, new characters are integrated more smoothly and successfully into the local landscape, even if their presence often does little else but facilitate a couple seedy affairs the reader has to read about in long, lurid, excruciating detail. And Brown can indeed craft purely beautiful prose and swift, engrossing - when she hits stretches where, say, the plot is actually moving or level-headed, sprightly-minded characters are speaking and no instruments of bilious authorial wrath are in sight (such scenes almost always star Rick and Cynthia nowadays), the books are breezy, quite enjoyable reading.
There's a lot to like here. I can understand why it's the Cat Who...s most popular runner-up. But Brown has sabotaged herself in the past couple books - and why that so infuriates me is because Brown had everything just about perfect in Rest in Pieces. I know there are contradictions between my comments here and in my Rest in Pieces review concerning the sense of community in Crozet and the maturity level of the cast - contradictions which only go to show how much the series at this point has strayed from that wonderful book. What happened to the Fair who was humbly reconciling himself with his past mistakes and slowly moving on with his life? Where'd the little slice of Southern country that proved so inviting in autumn go? Even the Crozet of Wish You Were Here, a stumbling, half-formed first effort, seems so much sweeter and gentler now in comparison to the collective nastiness on tap now. If my viewpoint seems unbalanced (and I understand I'm getting to be the Tom Shales of the cat-mystery world), it's because the bad elements here are so potent, aggressive, and in-your-face that they overwhelm the good - and, as a result, the bad is all that ends up making an impression.
In short, I am not going to give up on the series as I threatened last time, but I do not expect it to ever again live up to the heights that Rest in Pieces scaled. And that's a shame.
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