A pleasant diversion and a perfectly sized puzzle for PBS Mystery! fans.
In this novel, an American part-time detective suspects foul play during her Christmas visit to check on her best friend’s daughter in the British village of Abbeyvayle.
Feeling a bit out of sorts after her long journey from California, Betty Grape arrives at the cottage of professor and Mrs. Braithwaite, where Catia Ann Titchell is housesitting for the vacationing couple while working on her dissertation on mold. From the start, when Catia greets her at the snow-covered doorstop wearing only a towel, the elderly woman feels the vague discomfort of something being askew. Once inside, Betty notes the furniture coated in dust and grime. She’s not one to mince words: “Betty dug a fingernail into the thick layer of scum on the arm of her chair. ‘There’s more than enough mold right here to keep you busy for months.’ ” Meanwhile, Catia is fuming over having been slighted by Paul Goodyear, one of two brothers living in a camper in the field across from the house. Then there is the problem of the missing cat, Marmalade, whose collar turns up at the door in a parcel tied with dirty garden twine. Next, an offstage death—possibly a murder—is added to the mystery. All the fixings are in place for a good, old-fashioned cozy, set in a quintessential British town complete with a pub where Betty gets to know the locals. The leisurely pace of this slim volume allows time for readers to absorb the flavor of Abbeyvayle while pondering just what it is that Betty will uncover. Albeit a bit curmudgeonly in her approach to the cultural differences between American and English lifestyles, Betty turns out to be an enjoyable character, feisty with a tender streak. The plot is not overly complicated, but it is ably propelled by dialogue rather than action. Readers who follow the bread crumbs McEwen (Spring Fever, 2016, etc.) scatters along the way will most likely be a step ahead of the protagonist except for a couple of final surprises.
A pleasant diversion and a perfectly sized puzzle for PBS Mystery! fans.Pub Date: Dec. 11, 2017
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 85
Publisher: Imajin Qwickies
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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