Review: Murder of a Lover

Murder of a Lover by Faith Martin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Hilary is investigating her second cold case since returning as a civilian inspector in her old nick. This time, it is a ten year old unsolved murder of a cheeky, promiscuous, charmer who seems not to have an enemy --not among his fellow boarders at the house where he was found stabbed to death with a pair of scissors to the gut, nor among his various sexual conquests. Hilary and her team reinterview all who had any kind of relationship with Ronan no matter how tangential and nothing seems to pop up as new.

While that case keeps the team and the reader on their toes, Hilary's own life takes a couple of interesting twists as well.. she has acquired a stalker, whose gifts and messages get ever more threatening and stressful. And she and her superintendent embark on a sham relationship in an attempt to force the stalker to reveal himself. As this relationship continues, it becomes less sham and more real--but Hilary is not sure she wants to fall in love again. Nor is she sure what Steven, the handsome boss, sees as the outcome of their mutual attraction.

As always, Hilary solves the murder. As to the stalker--there is contact but not capture. As to the romance...well, that's still up in the air, too! Definitely, an ending that urges the reader to move on to DI Hilary Greene, #14!

View all my reviews

Review: Impossible to Forget

Impossible to Forget by Imogen Clark
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Angie has died and at the reading of the will, Maggie, Leon and Tiger find that she has asked each of them to serve as a guardian to her 18 year old daughter, Romany. Maggie is to guide her in legal affairs being a lawyer, Leon is to advise her and expose her to cultural issues being a musician and reader of books,and Tiger is to guide her in the ways of the world being a world traveler. These three now pushing 50 met each other as 19 year old newbies at Uni. Then there is Hope, she is a good 15 years younger than the others, they do not know her and wonder where she fits in the situation.. She has been asked to advise and guide in the realm of relationships. None of the friends are clear on the roles and not sure they want to accept her request. Romany, herself, does not feel the need for their guidance, especially the footloose Tiger who is charged to move in with her. Yet, out of love for Angie, all agree to try things out for a month and see how it goes.
Through flashbacks that feel absolutely normal, we meet Angie and her friends the first day of uni--she is uninhibited a bit overwhelming but still totally magnetic. The other three are so different from her and each other and yet through her they become life-long friends. Tiger is always somewhere other but comes back into their lives intermittently, Leon goes off to Leeds and has a family, Maggie and Angie stay in York and see each other most frequently. Still Angie is the glue and she reels them in together often, keeping the bonds intact. Now that she is dead their common charge, Romany, continues that glue. As she completes her last year of school before uni herself, we see the affect the friends have on her, but also the changes in them as a result of her presence. It is almost as though Angie is guiding them in death, much as she did in life.

Each of the characters are so well defined they seem real and identifiable to people we all know. I myself think the author channeled me when she created Maggie--lol

View all my reviews

Review: Murder Never Retires

Murder Never Retires by Faith Martin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Hillary has returned to town after retiring and spending a year and a half on her narrow boat plying the canals of England. She is not in a relationship, is closer now to 50 and isn't sure what her next step should be. Donleavy, her old Supt always knew what she should do next and takes no time to get her back to the nick to check out a new team of retired officers and college students who are tasked with reviewing cold cases. She is reluctant to commit to this endeavor. She would not be an actual officer of the law, would be working out of the basement from a room which is more aptly described as a stationery closet. One of the students is dedicated to becoming a good officer eventually, the other, a young female is more interested in catching the attention of the sexy 40ish guy who heads the team. Hillary has noticed him, too, but is not letting herself react to his obvious attractiveness. He, too, is ignoring his awareness of Hillary--should be an interesting addition to the series--hmmm The other member of the team, is, like Hillary a retired policeman who is familiar with her work and very anxious to work with such a savvy and successful investigator. So, here she is, investigating without the clout of ID as a SIO or the backing of a whole squad of HQ underlings. Nevertheless, she jumps in with both feet and, though many of the witnesses and suspects attached to a murder that happened twenty years ago are dead or moved away, she gets the killer in time. Lots of dead ends and gaps in evidence but one little piece of evidence breaks the whole case wide open. Gave it four stars because I knew from the outset where the person would be found. Still, good plot to get there and tie it up.

View all my reviews

Review: Murder at Work

<Murder at Work by Faith Martin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Hilary doesn't want to retire but her cover-up of Janine Mallow's murder of her husband's murderer hangs over both their heads. Supt Vane is due to move to Hull but he is bound and determined to get to the bottom of that murder and hang Janine and Hilary in the process. In Hilary's mind, it is only a matter of time so it is best for all concerned if she just fades away on her narrowboat to parts unknown.

To that end she is trying to clean up all her cases before retirement day. Her top boss, Donleavy doesn't want her to go so he tells her immediate boss, Danvers, himself soon to be reassigned to Yorkshire, to hand a new murder case to Hilary and her team. Her team now consisting of Gemma, soon to marry into a title and therefore also going to be reassigned, and a new DI,Mark Chang, a true eager beaver. Not happy that she is now trying to solve a convoluted case in too short time, she is even more distressed when she finds, Frank Ross, whom she forced into retirement a major player at the crime scene.

All ends well, in the knick of time and at the end, Hilary, home from Gemma's wedding and having delivered Puff the Tragic Wagon to a local teenager, heads the Mollern north in the canal to a new life.

Hopefully, she packed that A4 folder Donleavy handed her earlier in the week. Maybe she'll get bored out there on those quiet lazy canals.

View all my reviews

Review: The Bell in the Lake

The Bell in the Lake by Lars Mytting
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Received a copy of this book to discuss on BookBrowse. Although the human story revolves around three young people and their interactions, the true story is about tradition and modernity.

One of the characters is Kai Schweigaard, the newly arrived, young, unmarried priest. Kai has been sent to the isolated village of Buntagen, Norway. It is his first assignment and he is eager to make a good impression and rise in the ranks of the Church. He has a fiance back home and his success will allow him to marry and bring her to his side. The church in which he finds himself is too small for the congregation, is cold and drafty and totally dark and depressing. Indeed, at one of his first services, the snow falls through the roof onto the congregants and one of them, an elderly lady, literally freezes to death and is frozen to the wall upon which she had collapsed. Needless to say,one of Kai's plans involves building a new Church.

Astrid Henke, is a young unmarried member of the parish. She comes from an ancient, once wealthy farming family of the town. An ancestor, much to Astrid and her family's dismay took all of his money to purchase new bells for this Church in which Kai finds himself. That donation involved the melting of the ancestor's silver and its inclusion in the metal used to create what are known as the Schwesterglocken, or Sister Bells. These two bells are huge and loud and their sound is as much part of the town's life as the heartbeats of its individual residents. They hang in this ancient building, known as a stave church, which is built in an old and beloved style of the towns of Norway. There is no way that they would be able to fit into the design of a new modern Church.

Soon, Kai finds that his Stave church is considered to be unique and important to historians and architects from Germany, who offer to purchase it. Ecstatic at this influx of funds to help his build his new church, Kai readily enters into a contract and Gerhard Schnauer is sent to supervise the dismantling and marking of the pieces of the Stave church which will be razed and rebuilt in Germany. Gerhard, too, is young and unmarried.

Astrid does not want the bells to go from the village-- both men want to please her--but how? The conflict and resolution is interesting in itself but, in my opinion, the star of the story is the Stave Church and the symbols and forms found within it.

All in all, a multifaceted historical novel with interesting characters, environment and conflicts.

View all my reviews

Review: Divine Lola: A True Story of Scandal and Celebrity

Divine Lola: A True Story of Scandal and Celebrity by Cristina Morató
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A clever Irish girl leaves India and her British soldier behind,changes her name and passes herself off as a Spanish heiress of noble birth--a dancer by profession. Not a drop of Spanish blood, not a bit of talent as a dancer, volatile, at times violent, but beautiful, charming and seductive, Lola Montez forges a path in life that takes her throughout Europe, into Asia and across the ocean to the US. She has many lovers, most incredible of all the King of Bavaria and lives in palaces and small cabins in the wilds of mid 19th Century California. So famous,that though she died at least 40 years before the birth of my parents they knew of her story and told me of her career, though not the details of her personal life when I was a girl in the '50's! Her lifestyle caught up with her when she was only in her '40's and she died in NYC living in modest means since she'd given all the wealth she had away. Her last request? Let Ludvig of Bavaria know she'd died and always loved him. A fascinating story of a woman well before her time

View all my reviews