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Jul. 31st, 2010 07:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jennariaTHE BODY IN THE IVY, by Katherine Hall Page.
Cover copy: In the anticipated follow-up to Katherine Hal Page's Agatha Award-winning novel THE BODY IN THE SNOWDRIFT, Faith Fairchild is lured to a remote island to solve a decades-old mystery with ties to those close to her. In a beautifully crafted homage to Agatha Christie's AND THEN THERE WERE NONE, the island's guests find themselves trapped in an increasingly desperate game of whodunit.
In 1970, a popular, wealthy student, Helene Prince, fell to her death just before her graduation from Pelham College. The police ruled it a suicide, but Prin's twin sister never believed the official account of events. Thirty years later, now an internationally known bestselling suspense writer, she's still yearning for an answer.
Enter Faith Fairchild, a caterer, sometimes sleuth, and most significant in this case, the sister of a Pelham grad. Through the Pelham old-girl network, Faith has been hired for a weeklong reunion of eight classmates on the novelist's very private island. The dream job - the house is a mini-resort with spectacular ocean views - turns into an nightmare when Faith discovers she's trapped not with a group of longtime friends, but a group of suspects. None of the women knew the others were invited - and definitely hadn't stayed in touch. With no phone lines, cell reception, or boat, Faith is caught up in a deadly game of cat and mouse as one by one the alumnae fall prey to a madwoman. A disturbed sister's revenge? Faith must quickly unlock a series of past secrets if she's going to leave the island alive!
Gender of detective: female
Pelham isn't necessarily Wellesley. Wellesley is hardly the only all-women college in Massachusetts, after all, nor the only one with a bell tower. But the urge to make certain connections is strong, even though the flashbacks to Pelham are anything but reminiscent of my own college years. Helene Prince was toxic, systematically smashing each of her supposedly closest friends. It's not so much a question of whether Prin was murdered, but who did it.
Which in turn means that Faith Fairchild was actually hired, not so much to cater as to detect. Not that she's told this until nearly the end (which is very bad planning on her employer's part, given that someone is killing off her guests). Likewise, we're told she figured out who's behind both Prin's murder and the current murders, but we're never actually shown how the hell she figured it out.
I enjoyed this, but it was for not-Wellesley and for Helene Prince, and the vicious joy of watching her get hers. Faith remains rather a non-entity, and I have no particular desire to read more of her. (The fact that apparently she is a minister's wife doesn't help: I grew up in that situation and do not trust fictional representations of same, as they get it wrong too often.)
*
Must go get more soda. And possibly break out the WiiFit and attempt some yoga, in an attempt to unknot myself. Stef has already muttered about how if we're doing this next year, we're hiring a massage therapist for pit crew, dammit.
Team Mariposa, Blogathon 2010. Sponsor me!
Cover copy: In the anticipated follow-up to Katherine Hal Page's Agatha Award-winning novel THE BODY IN THE SNOWDRIFT, Faith Fairchild is lured to a remote island to solve a decades-old mystery with ties to those close to her. In a beautifully crafted homage to Agatha Christie's AND THEN THERE WERE NONE, the island's guests find themselves trapped in an increasingly desperate game of whodunit.
In 1970, a popular, wealthy student, Helene Prince, fell to her death just before her graduation from Pelham College. The police ruled it a suicide, but Prin's twin sister never believed the official account of events. Thirty years later, now an internationally known bestselling suspense writer, she's still yearning for an answer.
Enter Faith Fairchild, a caterer, sometimes sleuth, and most significant in this case, the sister of a Pelham grad. Through the Pelham old-girl network, Faith has been hired for a weeklong reunion of eight classmates on the novelist's very private island. The dream job - the house is a mini-resort with spectacular ocean views - turns into an nightmare when Faith discovers she's trapped not with a group of longtime friends, but a group of suspects. None of the women knew the others were invited - and definitely hadn't stayed in touch. With no phone lines, cell reception, or boat, Faith is caught up in a deadly game of cat and mouse as one by one the alumnae fall prey to a madwoman. A disturbed sister's revenge? Faith must quickly unlock a series of past secrets if she's going to leave the island alive!
Gender of detective: female
Pelham isn't necessarily Wellesley. Wellesley is hardly the only all-women college in Massachusetts, after all, nor the only one with a bell tower. But the urge to make certain connections is strong, even though the flashbacks to Pelham are anything but reminiscent of my own college years. Helene Prince was toxic, systematically smashing each of her supposedly closest friends. It's not so much a question of whether Prin was murdered, but who did it.
Which in turn means that Faith Fairchild was actually hired, not so much to cater as to detect. Not that she's told this until nearly the end (which is very bad planning on her employer's part, given that someone is killing off her guests). Likewise, we're told she figured out who's behind both Prin's murder and the current murders, but we're never actually shown how the hell she figured it out.
I enjoyed this, but it was for not-Wellesley and for Helene Prince, and the vicious joy of watching her get hers. Faith remains rather a non-entity, and I have no particular desire to read more of her. (The fact that apparently she is a minister's wife doesn't help: I grew up in that situation and do not trust fictional representations of same, as they get it wrong too often.)
*
Must go get more soda. And possibly break out the WiiFit and attempt some yoga, in an attempt to unknot myself. Stef has already muttered about how if we're doing this next year, we're hiring a massage therapist for pit crew, dammit.
Team Mariposa, Blogathon 2010. Sponsor me!