Format: paperback 320 pgs
Characters: Henrietta O'Dwyer Collins, Jimmy Lennox
Subject: Family jealousy and murder
Setting: Cruise ship in the Baltic Sea
Series: Henry O mysteries
Genre: Amateur sleuth, semi cozy
Source: my own shelves
Challenge categories: Read from my Shelves, Book Club Reads
I'm not a huge fan of Carolyn Hart's Death on Demand Series, so when our mystery book club scheduled her as the featured author of the month, I chose to try one of her others from the Henry O series because it had been so long since I gave up on the DODs, I had no desire to re-visit Annie Darling, and this one had been sitting forlornly on my shelf waiting to be read for well over a year since I brought it home from a used book sale. I was mildly and pleasantly surprised.
"Henry O" is an investigative reporter. She has brains, makes intelligent decisions about what to become involved in, and when to involve authorities, and is a thoroughly likeable protagonist. She is asked by a friend (and former lover) to help him figure out which members of his current wife's family is trying to kill her. There's a lot of money at stake (not for friend or wife, but for the kids --making a great motive). The book is still definitely a cozy--there's no overt violence, the characters are filled out just enough for us to infer their motivations, the plot moves along in a pretty straight line, the cruise ship setting was well delineated, and anyone who reads mysteries more than twice a year can figure out by about page 200 "who dunnit." Still in all, it was a pleasant and quick read--the sort one needs when one waits until the day before book club to gobble down something so as to be able to discuss the author intelligently.
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is it bad of me to actually like violence...at least in my books?
ReplyDeleteI like the Henry O series! It's been a long time since I have read one. Glad you were "pleasantly surprised". Have fun at your book club meeting.
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