Appealing despite some flaws.
A cozy mystery with literary aspirations by first-time author Wenner.
St. Louis tax preparer Amanda French is disturbed when she discovers inconsistencies in the tax forms of members of the Blue Lace Ladies Investment Club–her investigation makes her take a closer look at the deaths of two of its members, sisters Mary and Beatrice. The two heirs to the Carter cat food fortune died within six months of each other in bizarre accidents that the police attributed to the women’s dotty nature. Amanda, like the sisters’ Blue Lace friends, is insulted by the suggestion and believes Beatrice and Mary may have been murdered. Realtor Priscilla, handling the sale of Beatrice’s house, becomes involved when the home is vandalized. Amanda and Priscilla’s prime suspect, Mary’s stepson Tom, has ironclad alibis for both women’s deaths, and little apparent motive, considering he can’t inherit his stepmother’s estate. However, Ret Cale, Mary’s household manager and Tom’s lover, seems to have even less motive, but her shady behavior moves her to the top of the suspect list. Looking into the deaths reunites Amanda with her mother’s blue-blooded, blue-haired college friends and forces her back into St. Louis society. A middle-aged woman who is struggling to rebuild her own life after financial setbacks and the deaths of both her husband and her mother, Amanda is an enormously sympathetic character. Unfortunately, the numerous secondary characters are not as finely drawn. Amanda’s love of literature, particularly the Greek tragedies, helps her discern a number of eerie similarities between literature and the murders. Here the author may lose some readers, if confusion over the numerous Carter relatives doesn’t exhaust them first. While an ambitious and innovative twist on a traditional cozy mystery, the book’s symbolism is too heavy-handed–it’s improbable that the murderers would have such a deep understanding of ancient Greek texts. Endless discussion among the characters, combined with overblown reactions, replaces action that would have enlivened the plot and made for less tedium.
Appealing despite some flaws.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0-9815823-0-6
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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