Ten Second Reviews

Friday the Rabbi Slept Late

By Harry Kemelman

Rabbi Small takes over a congregation in a modern suburb of Boston which doesn't quite know what to make of the scholarly young rabbi.  When a dead woman is discovered in his car, the rabbi is caught between temple politics and a murder mystery.

This was more of a character study than a murder mystery - the solution comes out of nowhere in the last ten pages, and we spend more time with various congregants debating whether or not Rabbi Smalls'  solution with the broken down borrowed car is fair than we do going through clues.  It's kind of a cozy, where no one is threatened, and the wrong person is arrested and everyone is basically nice to each other.  Not bad if you're in the mood for it.  Also, and this is not relevant to the review, it seems like Harry is a weirdly uncommon name for an author.  I know it's a nickname, but I feel like there's lots of Jacks out there, not that many Harrys.  Food for thought!

Descendant of the Crane

By Joan He

Princess Hesina of Yan's father is murdered and she's thrust into power, suddenly the queen of an unstable kingdom. Determined to find her father's killer, Hesina enlists the aid of a soothsayer—a treasonous act, punishable by death, because in Yan, magic was outlawed centuries ago. Hesina doesn't know who to trust as she gets to the heart of the mystery surrounding her father's death, and the political machinations which are forcing Yan into war.

I actually read this before Behind the Throne but they share a lot of similarities - unhappy maternal relationships, murdered fathers and a quest for justice, a princess taking power unexpectedly, (spoiler!) family members secretly betraying them, bodyguard/detectives who keep them from getting killed and help solve the mystery, asian-inspired settings, imminent war with neighbor, you get the picture.  But both were disappointments, and I don't know if I would have liked Behind the Throne more if I'd read it first, since, in addition to the larger issues I had with it, it also felt kinda derivative.

I was into Descendant of the Crane initially, but it falls into the same trap as Behind the Throne:  too many people, too much confusion and plots, obvious villain (at least in this case, the villain was only obvious to the reader, not the main character, so her lack of action makes more sense) and by the mid-way point I just didn't care about anyone.  This did have a weird fucking subplot about magic and immortal people and her father and mother having lived for aeons (how they transitioned power without anyone noticing this was the same fucking person all the time, and also why they only just now decided to have and adopt a bunch of kids is totally unexplained, by the way) which is when I kinda felt like the whole thing jumped the shark for me.  I was enjoying the imminent war with neighboring country plot in Descendant of the Crane, but there's too much going on, and even the parts I liked didn't make up for all of the bloated parts about her weird dad and her adopted brother taking over. I'd be interested in finding out what happens, but I don't think I'm going to read any more books in the series.