Book Review
And here is another book review:
The Bodies in the Library by Marty Wingate
Anyone who loves classic mysteries and has read Agatha Christie's stories has read The Body in the Library, featuring Jane Marple. Obviously the author decided to make her debut novel in this series choosing a title that deliberately brings that to mind.
Switch to modern day Bath, England for the backdrop, and a 40ish something main character named Haley Burke. She's just gotten a great job as a curator of a first edition book library in a charming Victorian house - even though the board of directors doesn't realize she's never read a classic mystery in her life, and this is what the late Lady Georgiana Fowling's library is all about.
The book has a catchy title, a cute cover, and a very intriguing premise. The back cover on the hard copy has a fair number of great reviews. What's there not to like?
But the whole thing just didn't work for me, it was all a little off. First of all there is my prejudice against the whole current culture casual sexual behavior thing, which is taken as a matter of course.
Not by me. The humorous aspects rang true at times, but in other situations simply seemed corny. Frankly Hayley herself often irritated me, bringing out a mind reaction of, "you're a grown woman?"
I couldn't figure out what the secretary devoted to Lady Fowling's memory sitting in the library office all day long does to keep herself busy, and certainly Hayley seems to have an awful lot of time on her hands as she starts to develop her own job description. The book club group she allows to meet in the library - and who of course are the catalyst for the murder and body found there - is a group of odd characters who take their own writing too seriously to be believable. If this was supposed to be one of the quirky aspects, it was.
On the positive side the story hooked me in enough to find out how it all plays out. And the solution was plausible, with enough distractions along the way to keep the reader guessing until close to the end - where there is one more drama that wasn't really a surprise at all.
This series will appeal to many who don't have some of my own prejudices.Marty Wingate's book is well edited and smoothly written. It definitely has appeal to a section of the fiction market.
As this review goes up on the blog The Bodies in the Library in e-book format is twice as expensive as Murder at Melrose Court, the book I reviewed five days ago. For my money, you can guess which one is the better buy.
Sounds like my kind of book. 🙂
ReplyDeleteHa Ha, Linda. This is just the kind of book you like to avoid!
DeleteMaryJo, I read one of her earlier books, "Pushing Up Bluebonnets"? about a Texas landscape architect at one of England's prestigious flower shows. I pretty much had the same reaction you did -- it was well written but something was a bit off and I was never tempted to read another.
ReplyDeleteI am staying busy -- finalizing my portfolio, in what sometimes seems a vain hope that we will actually be able to finish under these circumstances -- and, so far, healthy. Wishing good health and safety to all here.
Then you will have that portfolio, and it isn't like a cheesecake, it will be a work of
Deleteart that can be revealed in any time line.
In our present circumstances health is ever lurking, ever on our minds. I'll be talking
about that in my next post.