Having read more of Thomas' literary works, and seeing she has a new novel out [b: The Seed Collectors|9618295|The Seed Collectors|Scarlett Thomas|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1428416168s/9618295.jpg|14505542], I decided to go read her earlier stuff.

Some things I found intriguing about the book was the set up of the murder, the normalcy of Lily and the complexities of the characters, how contemporary the book read even though it was 18 years old, and that it was placed somewhere other than a large city in England AND she was kind enough to give us a geographical map of the areas Lily ventured to by directions so we could get a sense of the isolation of the west country.

With all of that being said, I had a few problems with the book such as the use of "I" that began nearly every paragraph. Yes, it's a first person point of view but good lord woman, do you need to start every sentence, or nearly every sentence, with "I"? Yes, apparently so. The second issue was the constant use of smoking as plot device. I swear to deity Lily smoked from the time she used the bathroom in the morning until she fell asleep at night. Her lungs must be black as coal. (Not that I'm opposed to smoking but using it to move the plot along was a bit gauche.)

But the good outweighs the bad and I tend to agree with most of the reviewers here that even though this wasn't up to Thomas snuff, there is something compelling about her writing (and I agree with nod to [a: Kate Atkinson|10015|Kate Atkinson|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1363801830p2/10015.jpg]) that propels you to want to read more. Now that is interesting. ( )

I’ve recently been reading Scarlett Thomas – “The End Of Mr Y” was our bookclub book in November last year and I snapped up the back catalogue on the strength of it. “Dead Clever” introduces Lily Pascale lecturer in Literary Theory specialising in Crime Fiction and reluctant amateur sleuth. “Write about what you know” is the standard injunction to the would-be novelist so it’s no surprise to find Scarlett Thomas is a Lecturer in Literary Theory specialising in Crime fiction. It’s a neat dodge if you can get away with it - There can never really be any question about the validity of the narrative voice. Another advantage of the day job is that anything that skirts on or near the edge of cliché can be passed off as playing with the conventions - Her colleague Fenn Baker with his PhD on “The Heroine in Romantic Literature” bears more than a passing resemblance to Heathcliff, and true to form their romance is frustrated by Fenn’s honour (A drunken indiscretion leaves a student pregnant and he does “the right thing”). The student lectures create the opportunity for some clever pastiches of genre fiction which suggest it’s deliberate. ( )