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40x40

Mark @ Carstairs Considers (2273 KP) rated Dead Body Language in Books

Jul 24, 2020  
Dead Body Language
Dead Body Language
Penny Warner | 1997 | Mystery
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Unexpected Body in the Cemetery
Connor Westphal has moved from San Francisco to the town of Flat Skunk in California’s gold country, where she is running the weekly paper she inherited from her grandparents. When Lacy Penzance comes in to place an ad to track down her long-lost sister, Connor readily agrees. Then Lacy takes back her ad. The next morning, Lacy is found dead. The sheriff doesn’t think it is the suicide it was staged to look like. Under the guise of writing an article about Lacy, Connor begins to investigate. Will she find the killer?

What I haven’t mentioned so far is that Connor is deaf. I found this character trait to be an interesting addition to the mystery, and it really added suspense to the climax. Connor is an all-around strong character, and I enjoyed getting to meet her friends here as well. The plot is strong, although I have a couple niggles about who the killer turned out to be. Even so, I have to admire the strong plotting; I missed several major clues. I did find there to be a few more four-letter words than I was expecting, and I think there were timeline issues, although I might have added an extra day in there somewhere as I was reading. I originally read this book close to when it was originally released in 1997, but I never read the rest of the series. I’m looking forward to fixing that soon.
  
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ClareR (5784 KP) rated Crow Court in Books

Feb 20, 2021  
Crow Court
Crow Court
Andy Charman | 2021 | Fiction & Poetry, Mystery
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Crow Court is a wonderful book set in the nineteenth century, and draws on authors of this time, such as Dickens, as inspiration. There are a few descriptions of places that sound just like something Dickens would write - both beautiful and immersive.
The book itself is written as a series of interconnecting short stories, telling us something about the characters connected with the central theme of the book: the Choirmasters treatment of the choirboys, a suicide and a murder. There are one or two stories that cut away from this theme, for example, the troupe of actors from London, who come to a local wedding in order to entertain the wedding guests with Midsummer Night’s Dream. I liked this particularly - the dynamics between the characters were fascinating - and what a way of life!
An immense amount of research went in to this book, and I really enjoyed reading the extra information that the author provided on the Pigeonhole: the historical and geographical background, and the hours and hours that must have gone in to writing in Dorset dialect (best read out loud to get the full effect, I found. Although a person from Surrey trying to read Dorset dialect must be quite something to behold!).
This is another one of those books that was a lovely surprise. I didn’t expect to like it as much as I did. It’s a truly wonderful read.
Many thanks to The Pigeonhole and to Andy Charman for reading along and adding so much to the experience.