Mysterious (first), 1996 Discovered in the act of burgling a house that was supposed to be empty, John Dortmunder is robbed of his lucky ring by the superstitious business mogul who caught him. The normally deliberate Dortmunder’s outrage slowly boils over into a series of schemes designed to get the ring back, and incidentally to offer a profit incentive to the many colleagues who offer their assistance. Westlake tellingly juxtaposes the mogul’s amoral, rapacious behavior with the professionalism and bonhomie of Dortmunder and his criminal friends. Westlake hasn’t lost his ability to write humor: a breathtakingly clueless dialog about bar codes in chapter 38 is one of the funniest things […]
Continue readingAuthor: Beth Thoenen
Fowl Play by Patricia Tichenor Westfall
St. Martin’s (first), 1996 This first novel features a well-realized setting in the Appalachians of southern Ohio, deft characterizations and plenty of insights about rural society. The mystery, involving a woman killed in the back office of her agricultural supply business, isn’t too difficult to solve, but getting there passes the time pleasantly enough. Westfall covers lots of interesting subjects, including cockfighting, county fairs and Down syndrome, but often adopts a lecturing tone that distracts from her story. Occasionally the tone descends from lecture to propaganda, as in the following exposition: “Worldwide, experts on Down syndrome agree that early at-home care and teaching improves the potential of these children.” I […]
Continue readingMurder at Monticello by Rita Mae Brown & Sneaky Pie Brown
Bantam (first), 1994 Has Rita Mae Brown no shame? Having saddled her cat with an embarrassingly cute name, you’d think she’d let the poor animal live out its days in obscurity — as much for her own sake as for the cat’s, because we know the cat didn’t name itself. But no; Brown must advertise her error by giving her pet co-author credit for a series that now comprises three volumes. That said, Murder at Monticello isn’t as bad as I’d feared. There are several animal characters, and they can talk (though only to each other), but they all have pretty reasonable names, and they participate in the unfolding of […]
Continue readingDeath’s Autograph by Marianne Macdonald
St. Martin’s (first), 1997 A satisfying but flawed first novel. Dido Hoare is nearly run off the road one night, then her antiquarian bookshop is robbed and searched, then her apartment is surreptitiously rifled. Meanwhile, Dido’s ne’er-do-well ex-husband Davey turns up, ostensibly looking for work. The object of the searches and of Davey’s attentions is a book in which a familiar poem was scribbled centuries ago, possibly by the author himself: Shakespeare. Despite all this, Death’s Autograph is slow to engage the reader. Dido is a merely competent narrator blessed with a good story to tell; the more interesting character is her father Barnabas, a clever retired professor who is […]
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