|
[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
Jane Serrano has the job many booklovers dream of. A 43-year-old widow, she is content with her life managing a bookstore and leading the Murder of the Month book club. She has become a minor celebrity because she jumped out a two-story window, thus solving a murder. Here I have a problem. There are several references throughout the book to this murder and to her daughter's having been incarcerated. If that's the only information to be imparted, there is little or no reason for the number of enigmatic references. A man has been found shot: there is no ID. Within minutes, people are pouring into the bookstore, asking if Jane has solved the murder, even though the victim hasn't yet been identified. At last, Jane's friend Alix identifies the man as the first husband in her series of disastrous marriages. Hunter was a con man, a liar, and a swindler -- and had Alix's phone number in his pocket. The sheriff, who probably even his mother realizes is incompetent, is fixated on Alix as the murderer. Jane is determined to exonerate Alix, who is not only a friend but is also the person who gave her daughter Bianca a job that turned her life around. Jane has a "posse," in Minnie and Velda who fancy themselves the reincarnations of Miss Marple and Jessica Fletcher. In their enthusiastic pursuit of the killer, they head down one dead end after another, leading Jane behind them. Jane goes to the home of the murderer, believing the culprit is an innocent, possibly being held hostage. We conclude with two scenes that seem required in every book with an amateur sleuth. The murderer confesses at length while holding a gun on Jane, when it would be just so easy to kill her off. This leads to an almost interminable series of various kinds of jeopardy. Since the book is told in the first person, we know she will survive. The plot is very amusing, especially the antics of Minnie and Velda and Jane, reluctant to be involved, is a charming protagonist -- self deprecating and bemused to the very end. § Mary Elizabeth Devine taught English Literature for 35 years, is co-author of five books about customs and manners around the world and lives in Marblehead, Massachusetts.
Reviewed by Mary Elizabeth Devine, September 2011
[ Top ]
QUICK SEARCH:
Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]
| 
