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LETTER FROM HOME
by Carolyn Hart
Berkley Prime Crime, October 2003
262 pages
$22.95
ISBN: 0425191796


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

GG Gilman has lived a life of a reporter. Now in her twilight years she receives a message that summons her home to the small town she lived in during WWII, to a time and to the local murder that made her into the person she has become. As she visits the dead in the local graveyard, she rereads the note and relives her memories of the days long gone.

Gretchen Grace Gilman is living in a small town in northeastern Oklahoma in 1944 during the height of the Second World War. Because of the shortage of men, her mother moved away to work in the war effort and Gretchen now lives with her grandmother who runs the local and popular diner. The only bright note the war brings into Gretchenıs life is that the local newspaper, the Gazette, has little choice but to accept her as a writer, even though sheıs only ³almost fourteen.²

In the hellish heat of the summer of ı44, her next door neighbor, Faye Tatum, an artist and free spirit for her time and the mom of her best friend Barb, is found murdered in her family house, strangled. The prime suspect is Barb's dad, Clyde, who was home on leave and was seen fighting with Faye in a public place the night of the murder. Clyde hasnıt been around since.

Because of the magic words ³Iım with the Gazette,² and the fact that she is the next door neighbor and has knowledge of the people involved, Gretchen is let into the inner circle to share all of the policeıs information about the murder. But because Gretchen knew the family she is driven to write articles defending the good name of the woman who had been kind to her, and thus, Gretchen learns lessons about people and the nature of truth that will change her life.

LETTER FROM HOME by Carolyn Hart is a tale of small town life in the middle of the last century, in the middle of a war that touched everyone including their families and their day to day concerns. All the fears, hopes, and pain of the World War is brought out for the readers to experience along with the people in this town. Itıs wonderfully descriptive and sensitive. The town is populated with well thought out characters, all brought to life with a masterful hand.

But as a murder mystery this book fails and falls far short of the genre. There's a murder and a prime suspect, and lots of rumors, but anyone familiar with mysteries will figure out the culprit right away and then spend the rest of the time chafing at the main character for not seeing what was in front of her and not sharing the facts with the police.

Also, by starting the book years after the main story, any remnants of tension you might feel are undermined because the outcome is then far away and unimportant. Each chapter starts with the older Gretchenıs thoughts and excerpts of the letter she received. All the time traveling does is to interrupt the main story and remind you that everything happened in the long ago, with most of the main players long dead. It cuts off any apprehension and excitement you might feel for the mystery part of the story.

Because Iıve read other Carolyn Hart books, I had been expecting a strong and exciting mystery and this book disappointed. If LETTER FROM HOME had been advertised as a young girl coming of age book, and I only expected a gentle look backwards sort of tale, I think I might have enjoyed the book more.

Reviewed by Sharon Katz, November 2003

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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