Marilyn's Mystery Reads

Archive for October, 2015

Detective Inspector Roy Grace is getting married in ten days.  He’s hoping that his caseload will remain quiet until then and for a few days afterwards, when he and Cleo are scheduled to head to Venice for their honeymoon.  Everything looks good until he gets a phone call telling him that a burned corpse has been found on the grounds of the Haywards Heath Golf Club.

The body is that of Karl Murphy, a local physician.  At first it looks like an open-and-shut case of suicide, Karl having left a clear, concise note on the seat of his nearby car.  The note says that his life has lost its meaning since the death of his wife two years earlier and that he hopes his two young sons will someday be able to understand his action.  Roy Grace is finding it difficult to believe that a doctor would kill himself in this horrific way, with pills so easily available to him, but there doesn’t seem to be any other explanation.

At the same time that Karl’s body is being examined by the police, Red Cameron is in her apartment, waiting for him to appear for their dinner date.  At first she’s annoyed by his lateness, then she begins to worry–in the several months they’ve been dating, Karl has never disappointed her.  Phone calls and texts to him go unanswered; when she finally goes to bed, annoyance has reasserted itself, and she’s beginning to have second thoughts about their future together.

Before meeting Karl, Red was in a relationship with Bryce Laurent.  At first, Bryce had been wonderful to her.  Kind, warm, very generous with gifts, he made her feel really special.  But after a few months, a darker side to his personality came through.

As her parents and friends had told her shortly after the two met, he was controlling and violent, traits Red refused to acknowledge at the time.  By the time Bryce turned to physical and sexual violence in order, as he told her, to prove his love and convince her that they truly belonged together, Red finally admitted to herself that he was a dangerous man.

Despite a restraining order that she got against Bryce, Red is always looking over her shoulder.  And with good reason, because the reader finds out almost at once that the murder of Karl Murphy is only the first step in Bryce’s plan to revenge himself on the woman who left him.

Want You Dead is a thriller up to and including the last page.  Told from several vantage points, it allows us into the minds of the police detective, the psychopathic killer, and the fearful yet resourceful woman who is determined to correct the mistakes she’s made and now live life on her own terms.

You can read more about Peter James at this web site.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her web site.

Jane Lawless is busy running the Lyme House restaurant in Minneapolis, so busy that her first impulse is to decline a case brought to her by her friend and former employee Guthrie Hewitt.  Jane has put a hold on her private investigations practice, but Guthrie has come to Jane because he’s worried about his girlfriend, Kira Adler.  He wants to propose to her on Christmas Eve, but a long-ago tragedy in her family has recently been giving her nightmares.

Nearly twenty years ago, when Kira was five, her mother fell to her death from the family porch.  After an investigation, the death was ruled an accident.  Now, on the eve of a visit to her grandmother’s home for the Thanksgiving holiday, Kira has another horrific dream.  She tells Guthrie that in all of them she is watching her mother being strangled; although she is a witness, she can never stop it.  The murder happens in various places with different murderers, but every one contains the same elements–her mother is strangled, she sees what’s happening, and she cannot prevent it.

Guthrie and Kira arrive at her grandmother’s house, with Guthrie trying to uncover the reason for Kira’s nightmares and fears.  He questions the various family members–her grandmother, father, two uncles and their wives–subtly, he thinks, but after his return home he receives a package with a note saying that what happened to Delia Adler will happen to him if he continues bothering the family.  In addition to the written message, there are several photos showing the splayed body of Delia lying at the edge of a deep, snow-filled ravine.

The Adlers are a rather odd family.  Kira’s widowed grandmother Evangeline is the matriarch, an elegant woman who seems to rule with an iron fist in a velvet glove.  Her two sons, Kevin and Douglas, still live near her.  Kevin, Kira’s father, never remarried after the death of his wife, and Douglas, who obviously has a drinking problem, lives a bitter, meager existence with his wife Laurie.  The only successful sibling appears to be their sister Hannah Adler, a physician who has chosen to remain single and, perhaps most importantly, to move away from her mother and brothers in New Dresden.

Guthrie again turns to Jane for help after his trip to Kira’s hometown, but once more she pleads her hectic schedule and tries to find another detective to investigate the Adlers.  When that fails, she reluctantly agrees to look into the matter, but only for a limited time, two days being all she’s able/willing to spend away from her restaurant.  A grateful Guthrie accepts that, and danger ensues.

The Grave Soul is, by my count, number twenty-three in the Jane Lawless series.  Obviously there’s a lot of backstory here, but you can easily start with this novel and then read the earlier books.  Ellen Hart has won the Lambda Award, called Lammys, five times for books that celebrate LGBT themes, but there is no lesbian theme in this book, and only a brief hint of gay relationships.  The Grave Soul is simply a well-written mystery, featuring a clever and resourceful heroine who happens to be gay, a compelling plot, and interesting supporting characters who add flavor to the novel.

You can read more about Ellen Hart at this web site.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her web site.

October 17, 2015

A few months ago I took a week-long seminar at Brandeis University on the subject of Hollywood westerns.  During one session we had a discussion about writing screenplays and novels.  The class leader mentioned that there was an on-line list of ten rules for writing fiction, so naturally after reading that list I checked the internet for ten rules for writing detective fiction.

I found many lists on this topic, including Raymond Chandler’s “Ten Commandments for Writing a Detective Novel,” S. S. Van Dine’s “Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories,” Niall Leonard’s “How to Write the Perfect Crime Story.”  You get the idea–there are numerous tips for creating the perfect mystery novel.  Some are still in vogue today, many years after they were created, while others are not.  Here’s a look at three of them:

1. The criminal must be someone mentioned in the early part of the story but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to follow.  This precept has been violated countless times in detective fiction, most notably (spoiler alerts) more than half a century ago in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and today in Gone Girl.
2. All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.  Given the popularity of vampires and spirits on mystery shelves today, I’d say this is another rule that has gone by the wayside.
3. If you get bogged down, just kill somebody.  Unfortunately, this rule is followed way too often.  Apparently some authors think that there cannot be a pause in the action or they will lose the reader, so another body is thrown into the mix.

Obviously, what is apparent is that there really aren’t rules or tips that automatically will create a riveting detective/crime novel.  The beauty of the genre is that a talented author may subscribe to all of these rules or none at all when writing.  Whether the author chooses plot over character development (Christie) or makes “place” central to the story  (P. D. James) or barely mentions it is of less significance than her/his skill in creating a mystery that will hold the reader’s interest.  We readers are very fortunate that there are so many writers, past and present, who are able to do this.

Marilyn

A first for my blog–two mysteries by the same author reviewed at one time.  I read Murder At The Brightwell a few weeks ago and planned to blog about it; then I read Death Wears A Mask, the second novel in the series, last week.  I have a policy of not writing about two books by the same author within a year, since I want to introduce readers to as many authors as possible, but this time it seems only logical to feature these two books in a single post.

Murder At The Brightwell is a delightful romp through 1930s upper class London society via the person of Amory Ames.  As the novel opens, Amory’s husband, Milo, whom she loves and hates in equal measure, has just returned from two months away with nary a word of explanation.  Unfortunately Amory is used to this behavior, as well as being used to seeing his photo appear with disheartening regularity in the society columns of various tabloids.

Minutes after Milo’s return, the Ames’ butler announces a visitor.  It’s Gil Trent, Amory’s former fiancé. The two had been engaged for a month when Amory met Milo, broke off the engagement, and married Milo.  She hasn’t seen Gil in the five succeeding years, but he has come to ask a favor.

He tells Amory that his younger sister, Emmeline, has gotten engaged to Rupert Howe, whom Gil is certain is no good.  He wants Amory to go to the Brightwell hotel with him and try to convince his sister that her fiancé is not the right man for her.  Amory has met Rupert and knows that his good looks and charm are uncannily similar to Milo’s; perhaps, indeed, she will be able to persuade Emmeline that the man is all surface, no substance.

Deciding that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, Amory refuses to tell Milo where she is going, only that she is leaving the next day on a trip.  Correctly deducing that this somehow involves Gil, Milo offers some advice.  “Leave me if you must, darling.  But don’t go crawling back to Trent, of all people.  Surely you must have some pride.”  And Amory’s sad answer is, “I have been married to you for five years, Milo.  How much pride can I possibly have left?”  So off she goes to do what she can to help her former boyfriend, never thinking that this trip will end with a murder.

In Death Wears A Mask, Serena Barrington, a friend of Amory’s parents, comes to her for help in finding out who has stolen several of her valuable jewels.  A dinner party is arranged for Amory to meet the suspects, but no one there seems likely to be the thief.  A masked ball at the home of one the dinner guests, Viscount Dunmore, a few days later will include these same guests as well as many others members of London society, so a trap is laid by Serena and Amory in an attempt to catch the thief there.  However, everything goes awry when one of the guests at the ball, who was also at the Barrington dinner, is found murdered.

I would use the word frothy to describe Ashley Weaver’s books, but that would be doing them a disservice.  Although they are far from hard core mysteries, each one has a believable plot, witty dialog, and a delightful heroine.  Indeed, I found myself wishing I could be Amory Ames for a while, or at least visit her in one of the three beautiful homes that she and Milo have.  Murder At The Brightwell and Death Wears A Mask are two terrific introductions into a beguiling new series.

You can read more about Ashley Weaver at this web site.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her web site.

In the small English county of Derbyshire in 1978, two young girls are abducted on their way to school.  Rachel Jones is either released or escapes, she can’t remember which; she’s found a few hours later on a road outside a forest, close to her home.  But Sophie Jenkins is never heard from again, and her body, if she is dead, has never been recovered.

Now, on the anniversary date of her daughter’s disappearance, Sophie’s mother, Yvonne, is found dead, a suicide.  What made her kill herself now, more than three decades later?

There’s a new team of investigators, but they are convinced, as were the police thirty years ago, that Rachel doesn’t remember any more about the kidnapping now than she has already told them.  In all the intervening years, she had never seen or spoken to Yvonne, and Rachel and her late mother never discussed the abduction.  Rachel has tried to put the past behind her, not talking to the press or to anyone else about it.  But now, the police warn her, the file on Sophie Jenkins is going to be reopened, and Rachel realizes that everything will be examined all over again.

For someone who has always professed to have no memories of what happened after she and Sophie got into the car with the woman who offered them a ride, Rachel’s job is filled with memories–other people’s.  She has become a genealogist, making family trees for clients interested in knowing as much as possible about their ancestors.  Rachel’s only living relative is her grandmother Nancy, an indomitable woman now in a nursing home, whose advice about Rachel’s past has always been the same:  “These things are best forgotten.”

In Bitter Chill is a taut, exciting thriller.  The weather is cold and the town is cold too–people keeping secrets from their families and their neighbors.  Yvonne Jenkins, a devoted mother by all accounts, had withdrawn from the world after Sophie’s disappearance.  When asked by a policewoman to describe Yvonne, the neighbor says, “Frozen.  She was frozen.”  There are no photos or memorabilia of Sophie in the Jenkins’ home, almost as if the child had never lived there.  And yet Yvonne chose the anniversary of Sophie’s abduction to take her own life.

Sarah Ward’s first novel is filled with fear and surprises, right up to the last page.  It’s also filled with tenderness and caring.  Actually, it’s filled with all those things because they are what make up our lives.

You can read more about Sarah Ward at this web site.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her web site.