Musings of the Obsessive Kind

A web search, its results no doubt infested with sloppy attempts to gain page views, indicates that if I like reading (some of) Ann Cleeves's novels, I would also like the work of

Louise Penny
Elly Griffiths
Richard Osman
Tana French
Kate Ellis
Val McDermid
Kia Abdullah

I'm happy to wade through a novel or two apiece, but if anyone has thoughts on these, I'm interested! Any writers you'd add? (ETA Janice Hallett has been suggested in the comments.)

I've bounced off the first two French titles, some years ago (though I may try her newer setting). McDermid seems more thriller-angled somehow. Isn't Abdullah known for tense courtroom scenes?

Perhaps relevant: I don't love Cleeves's work and have bounced off at least three of her novels, but (this is positive!) her fiction has reliably been just interesting enough, just intricate enough, to feel soothing when I'd like not to be surprised much by a novel. To me, her stories emphasize humans and their places. I prefer the Matthew Venn sequence to Vera Stanhope or Jimmy Perez because Venn makes the investigations almost an ensemble effort---trickier to write, perhaps.

1. In fairness to Professor Mallory, The Origins of the Irish (2013) seems well written, well researched, and well considered. I'm at 19% in epub (notes and other back matter begin at 76%), and though I don't love his handling of Niall as a hypothetical line in the sand for when people in Ireland are "Irish," he carries it through sensibly. Perhaps the IE/PIE project (2025) was merely the wrong shape and scope at the time he tackled it. He was emeritus already by 2013, and Irish has the cadences of prose built up partly from lecture material. If we may turn an archaeologist's lens briefly upon the archaeologist, simple logistics suggest that he wouldn't have had the same chances to workshop the IE/PIE material in updated form before writing up.

That said, I've zero plans to try reading In Search of the Irish Dreamtime (2016), the monograph published between them, which Mallory intended as part two to Irish. One reasonable-sounding book is plenty as rehabilitation.

2. Because the Taproot Video collective will sunset as of 31 Mar 2026, I've acquired a copy of Annie MacHale's Three-Color Pickup For Inkle Weavers (selfpub, 2021). I understand just enough to follow along, though not to implement. MacHale's explanations are straightforward, and she includes clear illustrations of the effects she describes, with examples of variations.

(Taproot's website doesn't admit to its imminent shutdown, which seems irresponsible. They've sent an email to their past customers.)