Intentionally or not, Tope’s free-spirited heroine’s lack of interest in her new husband’s life and her responsibilities to...
An undertaker’s new wife is distracted from the family business by a local murder in the Cotswolds.
Just a year into her marriage to Drew Slocombe, former housesitter Thea has grown weary of his expectations about her helping to raise his two children, like the indignities of preparing meals or reading stories at bedtime, and misses her independence. Drew’s latest client in his work as an undertaker for nature-focused Peaceful Repose offers Thea a bit of the intrigue she’s been missing. Linda Biddulph has hired Drew to help with services for her recently departed husband, Stephen, though with the caveat that Drew is not to tell her son, Lawrence, a big secret she’s hiding. Apparently Linda is the second wife of Stephen, who has a first family complete with a wife and two sons, Clovis and Luc, who’ve been hidden from Lawrence his whole life. Linda promises to reveal the news of Stephen’s first sons after the funeral is done with and things are settled down, but this isn’t enough for Clovis and Luc, who have heard of their not-so-dearly departed dad and show up on Thea and Drew’s door demanding to be involved. Drew’s promise to Linda doesn’t make Thea feel that she’s obliged to follow his lead, and it doesn’t hurt that Clovis is easy on the eyes and could perhaps provide the intrigue that Drew is lacking. As the Biddulph family drama heats up, Thea’s attention is deflected by the murder of a young woman on the grounds of Peaceful Repose. Juliet Wilson, beloved by the village of Broad Campden community, had no enemies who would wish her ill, and local police are willing to draw again on the mystery-solving skills Thea’s already demonstrated (Peril in the Cotswolds, 2018) to help connect Juliet’s death to a plausible suspect.
Intentionally or not, Tope’s free-spirited heroine’s lack of interest in her new husband’s life and her responsibilities to her family diminish rather than encourage a reader's investment in her ability to solve the crime.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7490-2337-9
Page Count: 350
Publisher: Casemate
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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