|
[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
The Hemlock Falls Hotel in upstate New York has seen its fair share of murders in recent years, but the press pack camped out front this time around are there because it is the location of a sequestered jury and various court officials in a large land-related case. Land issues are a hot topic in the town, where the Quilliam sisters, Meg and Susan (aka Quill), owners of the hotel, are the top local sleuths. They fear the new golf course development may include a hotel to rival their own. But it's the relocation of a civil war graveyard that has angered many citizens and caused the establishment of The Friends of The Dead, a protest group that by now seems to have lost most of its members and its legal challenges to the scheme. It is no longer of interest to the media, until one of its number is found murdered in the graveyard, having apparently scribbled a clue to Quill. I was beginning to despair of finding an American cozy series set in an hotel or bed and breakfast that I could enjoy. Having tried the first book in a handful of series, I found that either they had a confusing array of characters, or a line of humour that either didn't travel the Atlantic well or perhaps was just not funny. In one case the writing was just very poor. Thus it was with a little trepidation that I scanned the two-page cast of characters at the start of Claudia Bishop's 12th Hemlock Falls Mystery, BURIED BY BREAKFAST. Happily, I was wrong. Some of the characters listed had very minor roles, and no doubt bigger parts in previous books, but I found all that I encountered to be sufficiently distinct and memorable that I didn't need to check the list at all. My only quibble is one that applies to most amateur sleuth mysteries, being the notion that the police are too stupid to work out a murder, and that this gives the protagonist carte blanche to undertake some pretty reckless investigation themselves. Those who enjoy this genre are usually happy to overlook this as without it there would often be no tale to tell; it was particularly noticeable in this book. One of the strengths of the book is that the inhabitants of Hemlock Falls, rather than the hotel guests, are for the most part the key characters. Their personalities have no doubt been honed over the series, and even the bit part players this time around felt three dimensional. As a first time reader of the series, I didn't feel bewildered or that I was missing any relevant back story, although there were occasional passing references to previous events. Indeed, I'm very pleased there is such a long backlist of Claudia Bishop books to read. And maybe I should try more recent tomes in the series by other authors to see how they matured. If characterisation was strong, so was the surprising plot resolution, and the humour throughout BURIED BY BREAKFAST completed my enjoyment.
Reviewed by Bridget Bolton, January 2005
[ Top ]
QUICK SEARCH:
Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]
| 
