DP54Cover - Deadly Pleasures

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Deadly Pleasures
the reader draws back. Sweeney’s books are very much
cozies, with their focus on psychology and family relationships.
They are also well-written and fun. Lovers of cozies
who do not yet know Sweeney will find her a welcome
addition to their libraries.
THE PENGUIN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH by
Donna Andrews (Thomas Dunne Books, $23.95). RAT-
ING: B+ Meg and Michael’s house is overflowing with
people and animals. A local zoo has gone bankrupt, and
Meg’s Dad has volunteered her home to foster all the
animals. The grounds are overrun with penguins, llamas,
and relatives assembling for Meg’s upcoming wedding.
Then Dad finds a body in the basement. Meg is running as
fast as she can, to identify the body, get rid of the animals,
and elope before the mothers pull together the elaborate
wedding they want. This book has been nominated for an
Agatha as Best Novel. Unfortunately, only the second half
deserves it. Donna Andrews at her best is wonderfully
funny. Meg inhabits a cockeyed world that almost makes
sense. The writing is light and clever, the characters
bizarre but believable. But the beginning of this book feels
forced, as if she wrote it from a good outline while fighting
the flu. The writing does not sparkle: it was even boring
at times. Suddenly, around Chapter 17, Andrews recovered
from the flu and the rest of the book shone. It was
partly too late. Neither the state of willing disbelief
necessary for this kind of book nor the characters had been
developed. Returning characters and their histories were
never explained. Taken as a whole, the book was
disappointing, although the second half is excellent.
THE MERCY OAK by Kathryn R. Wall (St.
Martin’s Minotaur $24.95). RATING: A
Private Investigator Bay Tanner is up to her neck in
problems. Her housekeeper’s son, Bobby, hints that the
hit-and-run accident the previous night may not have been
an accident. Then Bobby disappears. Bay tries to
investigate and keep Bobby safe, despite hostility from the
housekeeper’s family and from her lover, policeman Red
Tanner. Red, the brother of her late husband, is so newly
in her love life that Bay doesn’t now how to handle him.
Red is working on a string of small robberies. The two
cases begin to intersect, and both are brushing her family.
And then come the threatening letters and vandalism.
Wall’s book is an intensely local mystery, saturated in the
atmosphere and history of the Hilton Head/North Georgia
area. The mercy oak itself dates from the pre-Civil War
period, and some of the societal strains creating the book’s
situations are equally old. Other problems, like illegal
immigration, come from the present. Wall juggles all these
narrative strands deftly. The characters are all well
defined and intensely alive. This was the first book in the
series that I had read and, I now know, the best. You don’t
need to start at the beginning to understand the background.
Try Wall. I think you will like her.
DEATH UNDER THE DRYER by Simon Brett
(Five Star, 2007 $25.95). RATING: B When Carole
Seddon tries a new hair salon close to her home, she finds
an excellent stylist--and a corpse in the back room. The
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dead woman was a trainee, and everyone seems to be
blaming her boyfriend, who is missing. The boyfriend’s
family tries to get more information from Carole, and she
and her friend Jude become actively involved in solving the
mystery. This book is vintage Brett: a nice, rather simple
plot adroitly handled, studded with some delightful portraits
and occasionally sparkling prose. Characterization
is Brett’s strong point. The book abounds in interesting,
well-delineated personalities. Unfortunately, as is true for
all of Brett’s books, those fascinating people are not the
protagonists. Perhaps all he can do is portray surfaces.
Carole and Jude are drawn in only two or three shades and
have no depths whatever. Carole in particular never gains
self-knowledge, although over the series she has deepened
her understanding of other people’s characters. If
you have ever read any of Brett’s books, you know exactly
what you will get, a pleasant few hours of entertainment
and no more.
IN THE SHADOW OF THE GLACIER by Vicki
Delany (Poisoned Pen Press 2007 $24.95). RATING:
B+ Reg Montgomery is found dead in the city center next
to the site of the proposed peace garden. He is one of its
foremost opponents. Was that why he was murdered? Or
was it for more personal motives? Detective John Winters,
in his first investigation in Trafalgar since a major error in
Vancouver, has to take Constable Molly Smith along on the
investigation. This is Molly’s first investigation, and she is
making mistakes and having trouble working with Winters.
But the big difficulty for both is the press, which is whipping
political protest into a frenzy. Further complications are
the bicycle thief who stole Molly’s bicycle--and left her
without transportation, Molly’s efforts to get her friend to
make a complaint against the man who is harassing her,
and her family’s opposition to her choice of careers. This
is the first in the Molly Smith series, and a thoroughly
enjoyable book. It is a little too pat to be an A, but Delany
has the skills to make that happen.