Joan Spencer, widowed, moves back to the town of Oliver with her son Andrew and joins the local orchestra in her spare time. The second week of rehearsals is marred by the death of an unpopular oboe player. Joan helps the police investigate the murder (big surprise!) and does a pretty good job of spotting essential clues.
What I Liked
The story is well-written, and the characters are nicely developed, including some hints of romance between Joan and the cop. Interesting was the switch between the two characters as the narrator — not quite third person, not quite first person and surprisingly well-executed in the writing. The story moves along fairly quickly and doesn’t drag.
What I Didn’t Like
Perhaps too many characters with too many motives and opportunities. Unfortunately for me, I figured out the ending far too far in advance as well as the reasons for it — and yet I still got the murderer wrong! (Missed it by that much!)
Disclosure
I am not personal friends with the author, but I have interacted with them briefly on social media.
John Cuddy is a former insurance investigator who lost his job when he started drinking too much following the death of his wife to cancer. A friend from Vietnam calls him up unexpectedly while visiting Boston, arranges to meet him for dinner and drinks, and misses the date only to show up dead the next morning. Cuddy smells a rat in the official story and sets out to help clear his friend’s name and help his family.
What I Liked
Well, I was supposed to be studying French today. I even promised myself I would spend the evening doing that. Then I made the mistake of wandering over to a bookstore and looking through the Mystery section to see if there was anything that leaped off the shelves at me. Jeremiah Healy’s “The Staked Goat” was feeling particularly restless and somehow not only forced itself off the shelf and into my hands, but also managed to take hold of my wallet and steer me to the register. That was, I think, somewhere around 5:00 p.m. Except for the time on the way to the diner and the time to walk home, I’ve been subjecting myself to the simply wonderful story contained within its covers ever since. I’m almost tempted to read it again over the next few days, s l o w l y this time, to see if there is anything I missed, and if not, just to savour it a while longer. In any event, a very enjoyable four hours.
I liked the very realistic portrayal of the friends — biting their tongues when they used idioms (“dead to the world”, etc), laughing occasionally, etc. But regardless of the fast-paced action after the visit to Pittsburgh, the part I loved the best was the portrayal of the gay couple. I lived with a gay male couple with about the same age discrepancy, who had been together for nineteen years, and it seemed like I was back in their kitchen having breakfast when I was reading the story.
What I Didn’t Like
I did wonder about the accuracy of some of the details surrounding “sitting shiva” for Al (i.e., a funeral on Saturday? Jewish Sabbath? I didn’t think that was kosher, no pun intended). But it did say at the start that Al didn’t go very often — hope that wasn’t a cop-out…could’ve been an interesting sub-area.
The Bottom Line
I was only going to read a little — and lost an entire evening!
Margo Fortier is a gossip columnist who longs to write real news. Her first break pops when a hippie corpse from 20 years before is pulled out of a wall of a bar she worked at when she was young but far from innocent. Since she knows all the players from the time, she helps investigate along with the cop from the Sinclair novels.
What I Liked
A decent portrayal of characters who happen to be gay as opposed to caricatures of gay people, and the story never drags. The ending is nicely done as well.
What I Didn’t Like
More careful attention could have been paid to the real plot, as it is sometimes convoluted and hard to keep track of all the characters. Readers are also expected to believe that the main seven characters all still live in New Orleans twenty years later, even though they were all transiting through New Orleans 20 years before. Finally, Margo is a little too smug perhaps in the way she handles her first killer, one who has already killed two people.
Disclosure
I am not personal friends with the author, but I have interacted with her on social media.
An up-and-coming businessman is killed in a gruesome fashion in a gay bar, and the cops call on Matt Sinclair, a former prosecutor turned antique dealer with personal insight into the gay lifestyle in New Orleans (since Matt’s openly gay).
What I Liked
It is a well-written book, with lots of humourous one-liners regarding the gay lifestyle of many of the main characters. I like the portrayal of the romance between various gay characters, although less-open-minded readers may have trouble accepting the lifestyle portrayed.
What I Didn’t Like
The killings are a bit graphic.
Disclosure
I am not personal friends with the author, but I have interacted briefly with them on social media.
