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Murder in the Locked Library

Book Review of Murder in the Locked Library (Book Retreat Mysteries #4), by Ellery Adams

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I won a paperback copy of Ellery Adams‘ Murder in the Locked Library through Goodreads.

Description:

Welcome to Storyton Hall, Virginia, where book lovers travel from near and far to enjoy the singular comforts of the Agatha Christie Tea Room, where they can discuss the merits of their favorite authors no matter how deadly the topic . . . 

With her twins, Fitzgerald and Hemingway, back in school, Jane Steward can finally focus on her work again—managing Storyton Hall, and breaking ground on the resort’s latest attraction: a luxurious, relaxing spa named in honor of Walt Whitman. But when the earth is dug up to start laying the spa’s foundation, something else comes to the surface—a collection of unusual bones and the ragged remnants of a very old book. The attendees of the Rare Book Conference are eager to assist Jane with this unexpected historical mystery—until a visitor meets an untimely end in the Henry James Library. As the questions—and suspects—start stacking up, Jane will have to uncover a killer before more unhappy endings ensue . . .

Review:

A book-themed murder mystery, heck yeah, I expected to love this. But honestly I just didn’t. It wasn’t bad, but I also wasn’t impressed. Jane is supposed to be the guardian of a trove of dangerous books and the leader of a secret society, complete with martial guards and lifelong legacies, etc. But I never felt the gravitas of it AT ALL. This is very much a cozy mystery and that just doesn’t fit what the author was trying to create. 

What’s more, there are A LOT of descriptions. In fact, I think if you took all the superfluous descriptions out, this would be about a 60 page book. Not a lot actually happens. And honestly, since so many of the descriptions are about book-themed decorations, or cakes, or food, it all just eventually felt like author wish fulfillment. I’m very much a bibliophile, but eventually it started to just feel pretentious. These descriptions did a lot more to stall the plot, than progress it, in my opinion. 

It is also one of those mysteries where the characters spend 75% of the book trying to solve it, and then the villain does something drastic and gives themselves away (with a bit of monologuing along the way), such that the heroine doesn’t actually solve the mystery. It solves itself. 

This is book four in a series. So, I’m guessing some people must like this style of story telling a lot more than me. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be a whole series. This one is readable, even if you haven’t read the first three (like me). You feel the lack of those first books, a few things aren’t explained (such as what exactly a Fin is), but you figure them out. And there is a subplot about a missing boyfriend that is obviously a carryover from a previous book and lead-in to a next. But none of it prevents you understanding the events of this one. 

It’s not all bad. I did like the characters and the writing is perfectly readable. I think it’s just a little too Dan Brown meets Mrs. Marple for my tastes.

Book Review: Guesswork, by Martha Cooley

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guessworkAbout the Book:

Having lost eight friends in ten years, Cooley retreats to a tiny medieval village in Italy with her husband. There, in a rural paradise where bumblebees nest in the ancient cemetery and stray cats curl up on her bed, she examines a question both easily evaded and unavoidable: mortality. How do we grieve? How do we go on drinking our morning coffee, loving our life partners, stumbling through a world of such confusing, exquisite beauty?

Linking the essays is Cooley’s escalating understanding of another loss on the way, that of her ailing mother back in the States. Blind since Cooley’s childhood, her mother relies on dry wit to ward off grief and pity. There seems no way for the two of them to discuss her impending death. But somehow, by the end, Cooley finds the words, each one graceful and wrenching.

Part memoir, part loving goodbye to an unconventional parent, Guesswork transforms a year in a pastoral hill town into a fierce examination of life, love, death, and, ultimately, release.

My Review:

Three stars, but three stars meaning I can’t decide how to feel about this book, so I’ve split the difference and run down the middle. I thought this was a moving set of essays and followed its theme admirably. But I also found it hard to relate to someone who can casually spend a year in Italy, broken up by jaunts back to the US and a quick visit to Switzerland, etc. Not a bad read, but maybe not for everyone.

Book Review of Anatomy of a Miracle, by Jonathan Miles

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I initially won a paperback copy of Jonathan Miles‘ Anatomy of a Miracle through Goodreads. But lacking in time to sit and read lately, but interested none the less, I opted to borrow the audio version from the local library.

Description from Goodreads:

Rendered paraplegic after a traumatic event four years ago, Cameron Harris has been living his new existence alongside his sister, Tanya, in their battered Biloxi, Mississippi neighborhood where only half the houses made it through Katrina. One stiflingly hot August afternoon, as Cameron sits waiting for Tanya during their daily run to the Biz-E-Bee convenience store, he suddenly and inexplicably rises up and out of his wheelchair.

In the aftermath of this “miracle,” Cameron finds himself a celebrity at the center of a contentious debate about what’s taken place. And when scientists, journalists, and a Vatican investigator start digging, Cameron’s deepest secrets–the key to his injury, to his identity, and, in some eyes, to the nature of his recovery–become increasingly endangered. Was Cameron’s recovery a genuine miracle, or a medical breakthrough? And, finding himself transformed into a symbol, how can he hope to retain his humanity?

Review:

As I said above, I won this book and I’m really glad I did, because I almost certainly wouldn’t have picked it up on my own. I’ll grant that it’s a little overly long (though I think the fact that I listened to it made this a little more bearable) and slow, but the subtitles of the story are well worth the read. This book hands you nothing, it lays things on the table and invites you to consider them. I appreciated that a lot.

Were there times I wanted Cameron to open up and speak more, so that I could understand him better, for things to be a bit more obvious? Yes! But that wouldn’t have fit his character and honestly, this isn’t a story about Cameron. It’s the story of his miracle, if a miracle it be (this being a crucial question). And if the author had taken the easy route of allowing Cameron to hand the reader a pat answer, it wouldn’t be anywhere as good a book.

I did spend a lot of time afraid it was going to go the way of so much literary fiction and end in unbearable tragedy, but it didn’t. And the huge sigh of relief at the end was worth the anxiety.

I don’t think this will be a book everyone will enjoy. But I really did. And Edoardo Ballerini’s narration was no small part of this. He does an excellent job.