About
Reviews
Search
Submit
Home

Mystery Books for Sale

[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]


  

THE JULIUS HOUSE
by Charlaine Harris
Berkley, June 2008
227 pages
$7.99
ISBN: 0425222039


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

There is a blot on the history of Julius House, a residence outside Atlanta. The most recent owners - the Julius family - disappeared. Husband was attempting to start a business in town, wife was terminally ill; teenage daughter was, as many teenagers are, not terribly happy about the move. Nevertheless, the place is Roe Teagarden's dream house, and, unbeknownst to her, her fiancé, Martin Bartell, has bought it for her as a wedding present.

Roe, who has recently become a wealthy woman, has decided to purchase Martin's family farm in Ohio as a wedding gift for him. She goes to Ohio and uses a false name because the cantankerous owner of the farm despises the Bartell family and might find out her affiliation to Martin. She pays cash for the farm. I have a little difficulty at this point. If she uses her false name on the deed, she's engaged in fraud, and the sale would be invalid. If she uses Martin's name, the old farmer wouldn't sell to her because of a long-ago feud. When she gives the deed to Martin at a pre-nuptial dinner, he weeps - and that's the last we hear of the family farm. Nor is that the only loose end in the book.

Julius House, on the other hand, begins to figure prominently in the plot. Roe is taking up residence and redecorating while Martin is on one of his mysterious business trips, involving journeys to Guatemala and Chicago. Only after they are married does Martin confess that he's been involved in selling guns in Central America. He promises Roe that he will extricate himself from the arms business, but it does not sound as though his cohorts are people who would simply let him go. We never learn the resolution - if any - of the problem.

Roe is determined to get to the bottom of the strange goings-on at Julius House, and she is fortunate to have a "Dr. Watson" in Angel, one of a married couple Martin has enlisted to keep an eye on Roe while he's away. Angel is perhaps the most interesting character in the book -- astute, clever, and insightful. When Roe accidentally discovers the bodies of the Julius family, the plot moves into high gear.

The finale is breathtaking. I don't think one in a hundred readers will even come close to guessing what actually happened.

THE JULIUS HOUSE is the fourth in the Aurora Teagarden series, which is being reissued in a uniform mass-market paperback edition by Berkley. It first appeared a dozen or so years ago.

Reviewed by Mary Elizabeth Devine, September 2008

[ Top ]


QUICK SEARCH:

 

Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]