Reviews for But when She Was Bad...

The average rating for But when She Was Bad... based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-08-15 00:00:00 Donald Jerome Spoilers Ahead. Way down amongst the nondescript weeds of modern murder mysteries, there is a distinction that has evolved into a frontier, a line of demarcation. The easiest way to put it is that the Who-Dunit of Sherlockian or Poirovian classicism has parted ways, some would even say moved on, to the trickier and weirder realms of the Why-Dunit. Implicit here is that the whodunit, a jigsaw puzzle with contradictory clue pathways and intricate plots, is after all only a jigsaw puzzle; the whodunit clicks along like a metronome spreading a trail of butler-yes versus butler-no indicators in its wake. The reader must sift the data and crack the case. The Why-Dunit, on the opposite hand, cares little for the identity of the killer, which may be known at the beginning anyway-- and goes on an interior kind of search, for the psychology that could lead someone to the point of murdering another human. Think The Cask Of Amontillado. There is no real cracking of the case to be had, there is at most only the sad revelation, in the end, of the pathology at hand, how it grew and flourished in the darkness of the mind. With Morag Joss' The Night Following, we have a variation on this second kind of mystery, the whydunit, but with a difference. Here there is nothing but missed opportunity and thoughtless cruelty. There is never an actual murder, though there are a couple of deaths. The protagonist in her story is the killer, but-- she is not the murderer. This may seem too fine a distinction, but not for the hardcore, the initiated, the epicures... who will agree with me. Make no mistake; to have a murder mystery, you must first have, in one form or another, a Murder. A killing is not the same, a manslaughter is not the same; the depth and total divide between humanity, and a murderer, is fundamental-- complete and unconscionably horrific. But to have a Murder Mystery, the murder you have must have something specific ahead of it, something within it, something devious called malice aforethought, and can never be mistaken for a simple wrongful death, tragic as that may be on its own merits. Morag Joss' beautifully written "The Night Following" has many elements of mystery narrative plot and style, many of the same kinds of pathways and patterns. But it is something else entirely, something along the lines of what Barbara Vine is to Ruth Rendell, an exploration of empathy and identity, a mystery of the faith, in a near-religious sense; but not a Murder Mystery.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-02-26 00:00:00 Dillon Shelton I like "people" books - books about people, how they think, what makes them tick, why they do what they do. I like to ponder how I might behave if I was in their shoes. I like characters who are credible, believable, characters I can cheer on or yell "no, don't!" at. I like to care. Not many authors can make me care. Those who do become friends for life. Morag Joss is now my friend for life. This is high quality writing; carefully crafted, neither sparse nor flowery, with a skilfully handled three-stranded plot that carried me along effortlessly. It's totally believable, horribly compelling without being melodramatic, heartbreaking but never sentimental. So, what if that had been me? If I'd been the one responsible for the death of another? What might I have done? I'm left with the very uneasy feeling that I might well have behaved just as her character did. This book is not about monsters who come out of the dark to get us. There are no mad axemen, no car chases, no paedophiles, no guns or drugs. It's about how any one of us could unravel, come apart, 'lose it'. And that to me is more terrifying than a shedload of serial killers.