So here I am again in Poland on a trip to see mum, and we went shopping together and wound up wandering into a bookstore because that's the kind of family we are. I was looking for something that wasn't translated from English and ended up picking something with an author name in larger letters than its title on the cover (I know, I know, rookie mistake). My mum mentionned she actually has one of the author's other books and couldn't make heads or tails of the plot. So I end up reading this book (Only The Dead Don't Lie) and while the author is female, the misogyny is dripping heavily and the main character is what I would call your standard or garden variety Mary Sue (male version). * very handsome, has a natural charm with women without really trying, * super intelligent, basically invented the art of criminal profiling (independently of the real people who invented it) on his own based on talking to convicts in his job as prison psychologist, * is a super wanted genius profiler who has gotten Polish police to start photographing and filming the scene of every murder from a whole lot of angles when just a few years ago it was unheard of to snap more than one or two photos before calling it a day, * has a sordid past history including one ex-wife that he is on very good terms with, and who is ready to help him even when he misses his son's big recital night on account of crashing his car, * is currently married to his childhood sweetheart who has a terribly tragic disease which keeps her entirely off screen and prevents him from making a move on his current crush; at least, it prevents him from making a move at a normal pace and without feeling really, really bad about it, * has had a movie made based on the author's first book the first famous case he was involved in but it was *so* inaccurate, he doesn't even like to talk about it, don't bring it up, * has a super cool unusual disability (anosmia) that helps him keep his cool around really ugly murder scenes when hardered cops are retching from the smell, and serves as a conversation piece with his current romantic prospect, but is forgotten temporarily by the narrator when writing scene descriptions that are notionally from his PoV. There is a scene early on which introduces a male character who is short, ugly, corrupt, and lecherous, and resents the protagonist mightily because he thinks the protagonist seduced a girl away from him, when he was actually just really bad at picking up signals of disinterest from her. He insults the protagonist, who gets in some good verbal licks and then leaves before he can retalitate. That's the scene. I am halfway through the book and the ugly guy has not come up again, and while there is a slim chance he exists for some other purpose than to make the protagonist look good, I wouldn't bet on it. Also, while it is not inherently a yellow card worthy offense to write female characters who are consummate professionals but are secretly trying to cope with the horrible sadness caused by the disarray in their private lives, or powerful and charismatic men who keep treating those women badly, I raise a yellow card when *every* major character in the book is one of those two except for the Stereotypical Gay Guy (who cheats on his wife and tries to kill her).
