The hardest part of writing a mystery novel, I'm thinking, among all the hard parts, is a plausible resolution. And I'm wondering if this is getting ever more difficult as time goes on and our genre gets ever more popular.

This afternoon, I was happily reading a new mystery (no, I'll not name it here, thank you) that worked for me in several ways. The setting was new and fairly interesting, the protagonist, while a bit annoying at times (she was sort of oblivious to a couple minor things and obsessed about a couple other things) was still smart and relatively new and the mystery was pretty good. And then it all fell apart. SPLAT. As the story progressed, there were some "uh-oh" moments, but I kept going because I'm relatively aware that I'm a tough critic and dammit, I simply have got to find some new authors. I can't keep going back and rereading (which yeah, I'm doing right now, thanks to Project Move The Books Around). And while the library as fabulous and the books are free, I still don't enjoy the time spent on a book that disappoints.

There were too many "he wasn't quite sane" moments and the really disappointing "it was YOU!" moment comes 14 pages from the end. Dammit.

Look, I know. I am not an author. I'm a reader. I'm a fan. I'm a reviewer. I do not know how hard it is, not from experience. I don't. O have a couple tries tucked away on moribund computers and having tried to plot, I am aware only too well of how fucking impossible it is to write a mystery novel. Because there are people like me out there, who have read a lot and know where you're going. Know the tropes, the cliches, the traditions. Who don't want the same old same old while, at times, well, yes we do. We read in a genre that has tropes and cliches and rules, and we're not always thrilled when a writer steps too far outside those lines. But I've talked with lots of writers, I've listened to lots of writers, I've been privileged to hear from many writers about the process and I respect it and I undersatnd it from this distance. I also know that new stuff is out there and there are always ways of telling what might be an old story.

Of all the tough stuff, of creating a protagonist who's unique without being made of gimmicks, of offering dialogue that sounds real, that's not wooden, of avoiding those damn lumps of exposition...

Of all the hard work of taking a well-known city and making it yours, or of inventing a place we'll accept as legit, or of convincing us that this small town isn't like all those other small towns...

Of all the plots that we have seen, the psycho and the revenge killing, the jealousy tamped down, the "it just went horribly wrong" set-up, the mistaken identity or the malevolent twin...

We know them too well. And we know how hard writers work to mix them all up and offer a satisfying book that we want to read. And read again. And tell others about. So I hope I can be forgiven expressing how damn disappointed I was in this book. I know how hard it is but, dammit, I do have expectations and while I did not invest a lot of time in this book, I invested enough. And in those last 14 pages, the let-down and the PFFFFT noise is what remains.

Too often, my reviews sum up with some version of "this book was okay until the last chapters/few pages/third when it felt like the author had gotten yet another email from her editor/his agent about a deadline." It too often feels like writers spend such tough hours on those things I so love - character and dialogue above all - that there's a feeling of, well, rush, at the end. Gotta get the manuscript in. Gotta resolve things. Gotta tie up all the threads. And there you are, left with 7/8ths of a good book that goes flat, that just slips away.

So, am I right? Is that the hardest part? I can't come up with an original plot idea to save my ass and I haven't been able to since I first tried to write a short story at age 14. So if you can forgive me for making it sound like any of this is easy, am I right? What do you think?