For sixteen years Christopher (Kit) Holmes has enjoyed a successful career as a mystery writer, thanks to the popularity of elderly spinster sleuth, Miss Butterwith and her ingenious cat, Mr. Pinkerton. But sales are down in everything but chick lit and Christopher’s new editor doesn’t like geriatric gumshoes. It’s a pink, pink world for Kit.Reluctantly the reclusive Christopher agrees to attend a mystery writer’s conference at a remote Northern California winery. But no sooner does he arrive then the bridge to the outside world washes out. On his trek to the Blue Heron Lodge, Christopher discovers the body of a woman in the woods. If nearly two decades of mystery-writing are anything to go by, the woman doesn’t appear to have died a natural death.
Thanks to the ongoing storm and washed-out bridge, local law enforcement is not able to come to the rescue. Déjà vu! It’s practically like all those classic murder mysteries in isolated country manors that Christopher has been penning for sixteen years! If only Miss Butterwith was on hand. Or even Mr. Pinkerton....
Comment: After reading so many good things about the author's work and seeing some positive reviews I was expecting the book to be close to perfect.
The story focuses on Christopher Holmes, an outdated writer who tries to meet his publisher in order to get back his graces, but he stumbles on a dead woman on his way to the rustic place where the writer's convention is being held. There he meets several people and faces again an ex-lover.
The premise is good and the mystery is constant from page one, I enjoyed it and also how a small step at a time the relationship between Holmes and Moriarty, his ex-lover, developped and seemed to gain force.
This was the first book by the author i read so it took some time to get used to the language, the writing style and I must say I wasn't dazzled. It was ok for me. The overall story wasn't that bad either, but I was hoping for soemthing more, I don't know exactly what. True, the dialogue and inserted ideas about publishing these days is quite well done, but the story itself...I'm not sure but it didn't made such an impression on me as I was hoping for. On one hand it kind of puts me off from going to read more things but I'm still curious over the Adrien English series, that so many people love, I wonder if my mistake was by not starting with those?
Anyway, I'll read that series one day, but so far, I'm not impressed. Curious, hopeful still, but not impressed.
That is such an interesting reaction to Lanyon. What I loved about this book (and it's not perfect), is the humor more than anything else. I think Lanyon did that quite well in this story. There are hilarious moments. (The second boook in this series, was lacking for me because the humor was missing).
ReplyDeleteThe Adrien English Mystery books are better. However, for me personally, they began as a solid read, and got better as the series moved along. I loved it as a whole, though.