Carrie Soto is Back...and Magpie Murders

I just finished listening to Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid and was blown away by how good it was. I cannot remember which of my book blogger friends raved about it, but thanks to whomever it was!

Carrie is a 37-year-old former tennis star--the best in the world when she retired--and she comes out of retirement in order to try to win one or more tennis slam tournaments (i.e., Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, or US Open) in order to keep her record of most wins intact

The first part of the book recounts her rise as a tennis star--coached by her dapper Argentian father--which is the usual story of a supremely gifted athlete who sacrifices a normal life in pursuit of a professional sports career. The second part details Carrie's training, both physical and mental, as she prepares for her comeback. I loved hearing about the intricacies of tennis strategy--being able to have the physical capabilities and muscle memory to literally think on your feet in the split second you have to return a shot was just fascinating. And the training involved to compete at this level was truly inspiring.

The story itself is great, with tennis and sport providing the vehicle for Reid to explore ego, self-doubt, family, ambition, resilience, and fear of failure, not to mention the inequalities between men's and women's sports, how they covered, sponsored, and reported on. But the writing is awesome--most of it is first-person narrative, with some sportscaster copy thrown, and Carrie's voice is so authentic, believable, and compelling. She is often not nice--she is nicknamed "The Battleaxe" by the press--but she is definitely a heroine. 

And the ending is superb. Immensely satisfying, both thematically and in terms of plot. I highly recommend the audio version. Five stars!

I also recently finished Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz and followed it up by watching season one of the TV series on PBS. Basically, it is a mystery story within a story, which is very clever. 

Susan Ryeland is an editor for a small UK publishing firm whose best-sellers are a detective-based 1950's-era mystery series by a very disagreeable author. The book starts with Susan sitting down to read the latest in the series, and so we get to read it along with her. I liked it--good setting (very Agatha Christie-esque), good characters, good whodunit...but we and Susan don't get to discover whodunit because the final chapter is missing. Cut to the frame story and Susan turns detective to track down not only the missing chapter, but also the nasty author commits suicide, and Susan suspects murder. Great plot--so much fun to read.

The 6-part TV series was okay--they ended up trying to tell the two stories simultaneously with the same cast playing characters in both worlds, and the worlds overlapped in that Atticus Pünd (the 1950's detective) visits Susan and they compare notes regarding the two mysteries. Very meta. And, very confusing. I'm not sure this treatment worked all that well, but I understand why it was done this way. Also, Horowitz wrote the screenplay for the mini-series. 

I think the book was clever, but the TV series was too clever, and that got in the way of it being as good as it could have been.

Susan Ryeland and Atticus Pünd join forces to solve both mysteries.

The sequel to Magpie Murders is Moonflower Murders, and I believe that is the focus of season two of the TV series. Has anybody read it? Should I?