Tag Archives: crime

Dance for the Dead by Thomas Perry (1996) – BR00194 (2021) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
June 10 2021

Plot or Premise

Jane Whitefield is back and trying to guide an 8-year-old boy with an inheritance and a 30-year-old woman with stolen bank money to a safe haven.

What I Liked

The methodology for how Jane helps everyone is quite good, and reads both simple and plausible, a veneer of realism that sells the stories. The explanations for both cases are relatively clear, you understand the motives and why someone is coming after the two of them. Most of the story is a cat and mouse world, and it works well.

What I Didn’t Like

The two stories seem unconnected at the beginning but it is blindingly obvious that they will eventually connect, even if it is a connection told in reverse (i.e., if you know the connection in advance, you can write two separate stores to get there), but it seems coincidental rather than natural. There are also two really long expositions, one at the beginning for the kid’s backstory and one in the middle for hers. Finally, there is some romance that comes out of nowhere for the character, particularly as you have been in her head for some time and then it’s like, “Cue the romance scene with a guy she knows but we don’t.”.

The Bottom Line

A good second book, the premise is still great.

Vanishing Act by Thomas Perry (2011) – BR00193 (2021) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
June 9 2021

Plot or Premise

Jane Whitefield is a Seneca woman living in NY state. She honours her ancestors and helps those who are in trouble to disappear and start a new life.

What I Liked

The premise of the main character’s “job” of helping people escape bad situations and start a new life — serving as their guide — is a fantastic premise, and the first half of the book is primarily about how she goes about doing her job. While some clients are eased into the process a bit more gradually, her latest client is all-in from day 1.

What I Didn’t Like

You know as the story unfolds that something is going to go wrong, you just don’t know what or when. Despite some initial success, some of it seems even TOO easy for her to do with a minimum of fuss. Mid-book, the type of story changes considerably, as the hunted becomes the hunter, and it isn’t as good as her other books that have a bit more mystery to them rather than action.

The Bottom Line

A great first book in the series, Whitefield is awesome.

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton (2018) – BR00189 (2020) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸

The PolyBlog
March 22 2020

Plot or Premise

A woman dies at a party at a country resort, the solution obvious. But she was actually murdered, and a guest must solve the crime or never leave. Because the same day repeats each day, and each day the guest is in the body of someone else. He has seven chances to get it right.

** Note that when I bought the e-book, all the promotional material including the cover said “The 7 Deaths of…”. Now, a few months later, as I go to review it, the title has changed to the 7.5 deaths. I’m keeping the title I had initially. **

What I Liked

The Groundhog Day / time loop is rarely handled well in any genre (TV, movie, books), but Turton not only handles it expertly, he adds in a body jumping element that is brilliant. Each day he learns just a little bit more about the culminating murder, and about the reality he is trapped in, playing detective in a country resort. Some days he is completely new, other days he is locked into exchanges he witnessed the day before and must tweak them to ensure they end the same or differently. Can he prevent the murder? Can he solve the crime? And why does another guest seem to know he’s not himself? And who — or what — is stalking the guests?

What I Didn’t Like

It is a bit confusing at times, given the sheer complexity of the story. 

The Bottom Line

Expertly done — time jumps, loops, and body-hopping, oh my!

Murder at Hawthorn Cottage by Betty Rowlands (2018) – BR00188 (2020) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
March 21 2020

Plot or Premise

A mystery writer moves to the country to find some peace and quiet in her life to do some writing.

What I Liked

The feel is very much like an Agatha Christie-style small village with priests, neighbours and a local mystery, with a body dropping shortly after things get settled.

What I Didn’t Like

The romance side doesn’t work, as it’s hard to get a feel for the lead character’s age…one minute she seems like a woman in her late 50s and the next she seems like a girl in her early 20s. Worldly, calm, centred and then naïve, unsure, flighty. The ex and her son seem superfluous, and some of the other characters are a bit superficial with their secrets which are wildly apparent long before they are “revealed”. She isn’t as bumbling as, say, Stephanie Plum, but she’s hardly Miss Marple either, or even Jessica Fletcher. But these are minor complaints for a rich world and sense of Christie-like mystery.

The Bottom Line

Not quite Christie but I’ll read more in the series.

Note that the book was originally published as A Little Gentle Sleuthing (1990).

Down The River Unto The Sea by Walter Mosley (2018) – BR00183 (2020) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
January 27 2020

Plot or Premise

A detective was framed for rape, temporarily jailed, kicked off the police force and is working as a private investigator looking at a potential case of corrupt cops who tried to commit murder.

What I Liked

Mosley always creates compelling characters (like Easy Rawlins) and Joe King Oliver is no exception. Much of what you see is part of a long history … the story could have been told as a Western, or as pulp noir with Sam Spade, or as Spenser for Hire (or any of Robert B. Parker’s characters really). It is a “man’s story” taking care of “his business”, in a dark world that is full of violence which he would prefer to avoid but willing to endure when necessary. The main case (Oliver’s own) is compelling, but a little light in places. Where it falters, the case of his client steps in to keep the story moving. It was an Edgar Award nominee, and it was well-deserved.

What I Didn’t Like

His family (daughter and ex-wife) are a bit too much in the background (i.e., Oliver keeps the women-folk safe, so to speak), his relationship with an ex-prostitute is beyond confusing, and the relationship with his mentor is obvious long before a revelation.

The Bottom Line

Great character, great story, a few weak spots