Book Review: THE KING'S MARKET KILLER

Title: The King's Market Killer (DI Jack Dawes #6) 

Author: Frances Lloyd

Pages: 220

Publisher: Joffe Books

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

 

Fenella Wilson, the president of the Richington Ladies Guild and an illustrator of children’s books, is miserable in her home life. Her mother-in-law Ida bullies her and treats her like an unpaid servant and husband David Wilson blindly supports his mother no matter how she behaves. He believes that it is his wife’s job to clean and cook for them all, even though the house they are living in is hers. It’s a tense situation. Something has to give. And it does.

Egged on by best friend Judith Kelly, Fenella decides to get rid of Ida. Judith thinks of an ingenious way to commit the crime and not be found out. But before they can go ahead with their plan, Judith decides a trial run is called for, so they can get an idea of just how much poison is to be administered. The experimental dose ends up killing a Rastafarian named Jericho.

When Fenella seeks to poison Ida, the attempt goes horribly wrong.

Meanwhile, Ludovic de Coleville runs the Coleville gallery, a profitable business rendered even more lucrative by the side business of forged art he conducts along with his friend, for the mob. Since the number of crimes is down, Detective Jack Dawes of the Metropolitan Murder Investigation Team is roped into investigating the forgeries.

When fate bursts in to entwine the Wilsons and the Colevilles together, and consequently the crimes too, will the police solve the varied crimes of arson, art fraud and murder? Or will Fenella get away?

 

The style is that of a cosy mystery combined with the grit of a police procedural. But the mystery quickly escalated. The author maintained the balance, but the book kept swaying from one genre to another, without losing reading interest. For instance, when Cynthia, Corrie and Carlene decide to investigate the fiasco of Cynthia’s dinner party, it’s back to cosy mystery again. The description of the food and the vibes of the restaurant gave the book a warm and homely feel.

 

Even though the identity of the killers is known to us from the beginning, the author does a great job of keeping the tension high, as we watch the police attempt to figure things out.

 

It was nice to see so many female characters being so enterprising. Fenella is a book illustrator, while Corrie and Carlene run their own food businesses. Judith is a car mechanic, successful in what is traditionally a male-dominated profession.

While they all ran their own enterprises, I wasn’t sure of my feelings for any of the characters. Fenella, in particular, wasn’t likeable at all; there were extenuating circumstances, but I still didn’t feel sympathetic towards her.

My feelings towards the characters were mixed. Ida was the stereotype of an Indian mother-in-law, blustering, over-dramatic and deceitful. While David was a soft sod who worshipped his mother and rode roughshod over his wife. These two were easy to dislike. I couldn’t approve of what Fenella did but I could understand her motivation.

The Prologue was entirely unnecessary, merely providing local colour and history to the King’s Market.

One error: In an altercation between Ludovic and his wife, Sasha, the narrative tells us that David’s backhander knocks Sasha down to the ground.

A cosy mystery doesn’t really leave scope for the delineation of character, and yet this book managed to do just that. Fenella and Judith were both remarkable examples of amoral characters. Neither of them felt any remorse or regret for their actions. Neither woman spared a moment to think about whether it was right to take away a life. How there was no going back after a definitive act like that. Even after their actions lead to the death of Jericho, they express no regret for the death of a man who had done them no harm at all.

As readers, we are left to contemplate the manner in which events play out. The inevitability of certain actions, the inexorability of fate, and how you cannot escape the consequences of your actions. 

(I read this book through NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley) 

Book Review: JUST PLAIN MURDER (An Amish Mystery #6)

Title: Just Plain Murder (An Amish Mystery #6)

Author: Laura Bradford
Publisher: Berkley Books
Pages: 304

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Set in Heavenly, Pennsylvania, the book takes us into the lives of an Amish community. Jakob Fisher, a detective, has been expelled from the Amish community for becoming a police officer. It is a subject that causes him grave distress, even years later. 

When his mentor, retired cop Russ Granger, is killed, Jakob and his fiancée Claire Weatherly can’t begin to understand who would have wanted him dead.

Jakob is so stricken with grief that he has to get his reminiscences about Russ out of his system before he can even begin to investigate.

That is the crux of this book, but there are other people and their lives that are just as important. After all, it is a small community and it is natural for people to be connected with each other.

Eli and Esther Miller have had a baby, Sarah. Eli’s brother, Benjamin, who was Jakob’s childhood best friend may have found the right match at last. Claire’s 62-year-old Aunt Diane, who is sweet and always seeing the good in people, has a love interest in Bill Brockman. Amos Bontrager, who is on a Rumspringa, a period when Amish youngsters decide if they want to live as Amish or assume the English way of life, is a delinquent who thinks nothing of vandalising property and stalking women. His actions are upsetting the community, as is his father’s unwillingness to hold him accountable.

There are far too many characters here, and I was irritated by that until I realized that this was Book 6 of a series, and I was pretty clueless about the five books that had preceded it.

Honestly, I found myself losing patience pretty quickly. I didn’t mind the other bits actually, but the investigation was oh-so-painfully slow. I’ve read books on the Amish way of life before, but those were romances. Here since the theme was murder, I expected a little more excitement and action.

Here, the murder investigation is just a part of everyday life in a small community. So we end up learning about the Amish people through the characters. We have Esther who enjoys baking bread, Aunt Diane who enjoys cooking, and Annie, Claire’s employee, who enjoys baking cookies just like Ruth Miller, Benjamin’s sister. Claire’s shop features heavily.

There’s an election for the position of the minister at the church, and Elmer Mast, newcomer to the community, pips John Bontrager and Benjamin to the post. We also get insights into the Amish way of practicing the Christian faith.

My knowledge of the Amish lifestyle needed an urgent update. I was surprised to read that Esther had a fridge. I had thought that the Amish had no use for modern technology, since they eschew the use of cars, and prefer horse-driven buggies.

The investigation goes on so slowly, it’s like watching paint dry. Leads emerge from the most long-winded conversations. There is endless information about the colour of people’s eyes and their hair, which is the romance factor at play.

At its heart, the book is a romance. Celebrating the love that several people have for each other, and also the love and faith that the community puts into its beliefs.

I couldn’t get drawn into the book.

Jakob was far too emotional to do his job properly. He was always sharing his story with anyone he met. As a cop, he should have been scouring footage at the pub almost immediately to trace Russ’ last few moments. But it is not until Claire says that she would like to have been a fly on the wall that he remembers that he could ask the pub owner for the camera footage. It was only towards the end of the book that I realized that the book was more about Claire than Jakob. Perhaps that is why she seemed to get more leads.

Some of the words used made me cringe. There was one line, “Eli inhaled himself to his full height.” It was an annoying sentence, but not the only one of its kind. There were several times when I encountered the use of inhale, exhale, swallow, sag and lean as nouns. It was annoying.

It wasn’t that this mystery wasn’t good. It is just that the resolution took too long.

(I received an ARC from First to Read).

Book Review: THE RED HOUSE MYSTERY

Title: The Red House Mystery
Author: AA Milne
Publisher: Dover Publications
Pages: 156
My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Who would ever have thought that AA Milne, the author who gave us the delightful Winnie the Pooh, could have written a detective story?

With all my fondness for Winnie and his friends, I was ready to like this one, even before I read the first page. What’s more, Milne wrote it in gratitude and affection for his father, who like all really nice people has a weakness for detective stories.

The Red House is almost a character in its own right, for in the very first chapter, we learn that it was taking its siesta.

Mark Ablett’s brother, Robert, sends home a letter to announce that he is coming home after having spent 15 years in Australia. Mark is none too happy to hear this.

Mark’s cousin, Matthew Cayley, who is in attendance, looks after the house and other matters. Major Rumbold, Bill Beverly, Miss Norris, Betty Calladine, Mrs John Calladine are the other guests at the house. Into this mix, arrives Anthony Gillingham, an intelligent young man, who fancies himself something of an amateur detective.

The moment Anthony arrives is the exact moment when a dead body is found in the house. At first Anthony and Bill believe that it is Robert who is dead, and that Mark has killed him and fled the scene, with or without help from Cayley.

Anthony takes it upon himself to solve the crime, using Bill as a sidekick. The two conveniently make fun of the Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson device, employed by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in which Watson asked the most pointless questions so the sleuth could shine.

Anthony asks Bill, Do-you-follow-me-Watson; that one. Are you prepared to have quite obvious things explained to you, to ask futile questions, to give me chances of scoring off you, to make brilliant discoveries of your own two or three days after I have made them myself all that kind of thing? Because it all helps.

Hamming up on Doyle’s pet device, Anthony talks in a friendly and slightly patronizing tone to Bill, which the latter doesn’t mind in the least.

The pace of the book is quite laidback, and very British. Which means, there is a lot of dressing for dinner, and elaborate teas, and games of billiards and bowls and that sort of thing, which makes us wonder how these guys could ever keep up this kind of a lifestyle.

The only time my heart popped up in my mouth was in the library scene, where Cayley enters the library just as Anthony has entered the secret passage and Bill is afraid he will pop out of the bookcase at any time, in full view of Cayley.

The book ends on a very encouraging note, with Anthony urging Bill to accept the invitation he has and to let him know if someone should drop dead.

Book Review: AUNT BESSIE ASSUMES

Title: Aunt Bessie Assumes
Author: Diana Xarissa
Publisher: Kindle
Pages: 214

Aunt Bessie Assumes by Diana Xarissa is an Isle of Man Cozy Mystery.

Elizabeth Cubbon, known as Aunt Bessie to her friends, is the Isle of Man’s answer to Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple. Never married, Aunt Bessie is the generous yet firm aunt to the people around. This book, the first in a series, is the first time she stumbles into sleuthing.

While out on a walk on the beach, she literally stumbles over a dead body. It turns out to be that of Danny Pierce, the older son of the fabulously wealthy Pierces, whose summer cottage is located on the island. Danny’s death throws up a number of potential suspects. The widow is a gold digger, younger brother, Donny, has financial woes, and there seems to be a hint of a drug problem that Danny had.

Having discovered the body, Aunt Bessie develops a keen interest in the investigation. Before long, she is making her own deductions, and sharing them with John Rockwell, the chief inspector of the CID, and Hugh Watterson, a young policeman. Her friend, Doona, who works at the police station, is also part of the quartet.

They mystery deepens slightly when Donny’s girlfriend, Samantha, hints at a controversy being afoot, but before she can speak of her suspicions to Aunt Bessie, she is killed too.

It’s a cosy mystery, so there isn’t much of danger in the air, except for a time, when in true detective mystery tradition, the killer tries to eliminate Aunt Bessie because he thinks she knows too much. Ironically, until the killer actually admits to the crime, Aunt Bessie has not really caught on to the person’s identity. We, on the other hand, have already managed to suspect this person, simply because there aren’t too many suspicious characters floating around these pages anyway.

I liked the character of Aunt Bessie. She is tough and independent and does not react kindly to those who hold ageist and sexist beliefs, and she likes reading mystery novels. Naturally, it isn’t quite that long before she unconsciously begins to attempt to solve the mystery herself.

This book doesn’t tax your grey cells but it is pleasant reading nonetheless.