Grouchy Reader Syndrome

[Peg Herring]

Someone else named it, but it so fit me that I had to borrow it.
I've become a grouchy reader. Everything in a book has to work, or I'm angry at the author. Characters have to stay within their character, and there had better be at least one I can admire, maybe even like. I just finished one by an author who is admittedly great with words, but no one in the book was remotely admirable, so why should I care if they get involved in crime?
Plots have to work, and I can see it a mile away if you're stretching things so that the ending comes together the way you want it to. Mention that green sweater once too often, take a little too long describing the staircase to the basement, draw my notice to the picture on the bureau with too much detail, and I know it's the thread that's going to pull apart the whole veil of mystery.
I like setting stuff, but an author is wise to blend it with other stuff. Too many authors equate setting description with literary-ness and try for poetic expression of sunsets or vistas that don't fit well with the rest of the story.
For pity's sake, leave your political, societal, and psychological philosophies out of it. If I wanted a treatise on one of those things, I'd buy one.
And while I don't mind learning about crafts, history, and professions as I read, subject me once to an info dump and I'll never buy your books again.
After five decades of reading mysteries, I'm looking only for authors who can balance all these things and get them just right. There. Is that grouchy enough for you?