I thought it was surprisingly good, and I thought it was a good move on her part to tell the story through the eyes of Bernie rather than Chee or Leaphorn. I found the climactic scene a bit hard to visualize, though.
On the whole, for me, it depends. The successor needs to be able to make his/her own magic in the originator’s world, and that can be tough.
I like this theory. A lot. I would extend it to the Sunny Randall novels as well, with Spenser hallucinating that he is a perkily adorable but tough-as-nails blonde with a gay best friend.
I was intrigued to learn that several people have written novels about Djien-Djieh Dee after Robert Gulik’s death. These have not, for the most part, been translated into English:
I’ve read Deception, which retains Dee as a detective, although not in quite the way that Van Gulik had. I’d like to read some of the others listed above that do, should they become available in English. I have no interest in seeing the Detective Dee film., which seems completely different.
Incidentally, the Wikipedia list is not complete. According to Van Gulik himself, Dee appears (as “Judge Ti”) in Lin Yu-Tang’;s novel Lady Wu, which I’d like to read some time.
FWIW, as I know Clancy doesn’t garner a lot of interest around these parts lately, Support and Defend was as good as any previous Clancy I’ve read and had a much better sense of humor. The novel was basically one long chase but stayed interesting the whole time, despite being focused on a very small corner of the Clancy-verse.
Apparently there will be another novel coming in December or so. I am looking forward to it.
I also did not know that someone had continued to write Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries, great news. The things you learn online.
Also the Rick Boyer story, a reminder to see if there’re any Doc Adams books I’ve missed.
Did not know that Wm Tappley had died. It was always neat to see their characters cross-reference each other (and apparently neither character worked much; they were always out of the office). I had stopped reading him though. The last Brady Coyne one I read was too much about a new girlfriend who just seemed like such a drama llama. Maybe she was killed off in the next book, anyone know?
