Reviewed By Liz

The Emma Lord Alpine series is up to the letter R now – R for Recluse. Lord owns a newspaper in a small town in the mountains – and the small town aspect is my favorite part of the series. Daheim has captured some of the charming aspects of small town life. Almost everyone is related in some way or has history that underlies everyday activities, there are plenty of colorful characters, and everyone either works together to get things done or squabbles endlessly and nothing gets done.

The biggest drawback to the series is the character of Emma Lord. Having decided to solve this murder mystery herself, Lord wanders around town questioning suspects using newspaper feature stories as an excuse. While the gathering of information may be expected of a reporter (or newspaper owner), her character really comes off as a user of people who is insensitive to their needs and emotions. When interviewing the young, pregnant widow (p. 72 hardcover), Lord says that she herself raised a child on her own and that “Many other people have suffered tremendous losses. Look around you.” If I were the grieving widow I would pitch her right out the door. She didn’t even have the good manners to bring a casserole or something – a must for small town dwellers when there has been a death in the family.

The most unusual aspect of this series is also the hardest to pin down. It has this weird moralistic/Catholic guilt theme running through it. Lord is the mother of an illegitimate child, with whose father she had an adulterous relationship. This son grew up to be a priest, and her brother is also a priest. And the fact that they are priests is mentioned every time they are. You have heard the stereotypical comment “My son, the doctor?” This is my son, the priest and my brother, the priest.

And then you get really odd bits like the conversation on page 231. Lord is admiring a painting, about whose creator she knows next to nothing, but whom she speculates might have a “busted vocation.” Her brother, the priest, has a theory that many people deny their call to the religious life and are unhappy living secular lives. Huh? Even the character she is talking to is perplexed because the comment comes completely from left field.

Did I guess it? No. But I don’t think the end was very believable, either. It wraps up in about eight very unsatisfactory pages. Worth reading? If you are invested in the series’ characters, go ahead. But for me, the Alpine series is going to end with R.

Mystery Book Reviews by Reviewed By Liz.com ©2006

This is another entry in the Amelia Peabody/Radcliffe Emerson series. They are archaeologists and sleuths in the early part of the last century. This particular book is set in Egypt in 1922 – when King Tut’s tomb is discovered.

I have read most of the books in this series over the years and have always had mixed feelings about them. On the one had, the archaeological information is can be very interesting, if sometimes sparse in some of the books. Peters has a Ph.D. in Egyptology and her knowledge of the subject permeates the book and keeps you interested even if the characters and plot are lacking. I was particularly interested in the descriptions of the events surrounding the discovery of Tut’s tomb, which Peters’ obviously researched.

But on the other hand, the suspension of disbelief factor is so high in these books that it often ruins them for me. You know how you are reading a book and come upon something so preposterous that you start muttering comments aloud? And you have to turn to your spouse/roommate/significant and tell them just how ridiculous the author is being. Unless they have read the book they don’t usually understand, but you feel so strongly about it that they agree with you just to get you to pipe down. You know how that is? Peters’ books are like that. And the thing that happens on page 122 (hardcover) had me lecturing/ranting at my husband for a good fifteen minutes. Peters needed to move the plot in a particular direction and has one of her characters do something so unutterably stupid that she loses all credibility. But enough on that, I leave it for you to discover.

Another thing I like about the books is the derring-do of the characters. The books are set in the teens and 1920’s and the characters reflect what we would like to believe adventurers of the day were like. They have a take-charge attitude that causes them to leap onto horseback and charge off to rescue damsels in distress, hair streaming, pistols cracking – you get the idea. They have a certain gaiety about them that is charming.

Unfortunately, the characters often aren’t very believable. The children, in particular, are hard to accept as Peters has made them more precocious than any child actually is. The characters are all the most famous, most beautiful, most intelligent, most popular, and just generally the best at everything. Which really grates on the nerves in a book of almost 400 pages.

The characters are also sanctimonious, haughty, and self-righteous. At one point in this book, Peabody has a woman kidnapped and held for several days because she feels she knows what is best for this woman and wants to keep her safe. And Peabody is resentful when the woman bops her on the head and escapes. How rude of her to do such a thing! Later in the book, Peabody speaks of trying to teach a young boy morality and hopes it isn’t too late for him. She should look to herself, first.

These books are very much a mixed bag. If you can overlook character shortcomings and ridiculous plots in favor of interesting period and archaeological flavor, by all means pick one up. If you like them, you have the advantage of stumbling into a long series.

And did I guess it? No. This book is more of a romp than a whodunit. You just go where the adventure leads you.

Mystery Book Reviews by Reviewed By Liz.com ©2006

In the first few pages of this book, William Monk watches a man and a woman fall off Waterloo Bridge to their deaths. The tantalizing question – murder, suicide, or accident? Monk, his new River Police staff, his wife Hester, his usual assorted assistants, and even his old nemesis Runcorn all work together in this book to try to find the solution.

This large cast of characters not only worries at the question of the pair on the bridge, they then move on to the larger reform-minded goal of workplace safety. In this case, they are concerned about the workers constructing the new London sewer system, which is desperately needed to avoid another outbreak of disease in the city of 3 million people.

Did I guess it? No. I thought the ending would go in a different direction. And I must say that I was a little disappointed with the ending. It seemed a little rushed and there were some important details that I didn’t feel were adequately explained.

Worth reading? Yes. As usual, Perry has no problem enveloping the reader in the Victorian era. We walk along the streets in search of pork pie and hot chestnut vendors and, when Monk is chilled from working on the river in his new job, I find myself making tea to warm up, too. The suspension of disbelief factor in Perry’s series is low – her details seem accurate and she doesn’t glamorize the time period. When you read her books you see and feel the poverty, dirt, hunger, social constraints, and the desperate need for reform and change that her characters try to bring about. Her books don’t leave you feeling uplifted at the end, but as if you have won some small moral victory.

Dark Assassin by Anne Perry (Amazon.com)

Mystery Book Reviews by Reviewed By Liz.com ©2006