A Likeness In Stone

Rating:
Summary: Great Read
Review: A review compared "A Likeness in Stone" to Minette Walters fantastic psychological suspense novels, so I thought I'd give it a try. The reward was more than I had hoped for.

Twenty years ago a student had gone missing. The police suspected murder but weren't able to prove anything. Now the body has surfaced and with it the old allegations and suspicions.

This is not a classical 'Whodunit'. The focus is less on finding the culprit (though that happens in the end as well) than on how the three student under suspicion at the time have dealt with the disappearance of their friend and lover and how it has influenced their live since. Joan and Ian especially were portrayed so well that their actions even if questionable became understandable.

If you like psychological suspense, I encourage you to read Julia Wallis Martin. She may be the coming star if her first novel is any indication.

Rating:
Summary: The next Ruth Rendell?
Review: Darkly atmospheric, with intriguing characters and a particularly repulsive murderer, "A Likeness In Stone" is reminiscent of such Ruth Rendell masterpieces as "The Lake of Darkness" and "A Judgement in Stone." In my opinion, comparisons to Minette Walters do Julia Wallis Martin a disservice because Ms Walters will never be able to create the kind of creeping horror that Martin makes the reader feel in this novel. The identity of the murderer is not hard to guess, but whodunit is less important than why, how (and how often!).

Rating:
Summary: A very good mystery with gothic overtones
Review: It took almost two decades before the corpse of college student Helena Warner was found by divers in a building submerged by a reservoir. The news of the discovery reaches retired Detective Chief Inspector Bill Driver who never liked leaving a case open. He was positive what happened to her when the coed disappeared and still remains certain that her lover Ian Gilmore is Helena's killer.

Bill is driven to join the investigation, something the current force does not appreciate. Two other suspects besides Ian surface Helena's best friend Joan Poole and another former student. As Bill seeks the connections between the deceased and her three potential culprits, another dead body is found that is eerily similar to the Warner case. Bill realizes that he must quickly uncover the killer's identity before the individual becomes a mass murdering serial killer.

A LIKENESS IN STONE combines the best of the British police procedural with a chilling psychological drama into an incredibly well-written and exciting debut novel. Bill and the rest of the cast are all top rate characters, but it is the cleverly designed story line which constantly forces readers to reevaluate what they think is going to occur that turns this book into something special. Keep an eye out for J. Wallis Martin because if this novel is any indication, she has a great career ahead of her.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: An entertaining story...
Review: Opting for a fair amount of character development and a solid plot, the author has created a thoroughly enjoyable book that I completed in one sitting. Avid mystery readers will probably ID the killer about half way through the book.

The supposed similarity of this book with those written by Minette Walters must be owing to plot elements such as: three suspects and a body found in water (the Breaker); or, a long dead body that brings a formerly frustrated cop back to harass the main suspects (The Ice House). However, the depth of character development found in Walters' better books is missing. And, the reader probably won't learn much from this book, unlike those by Deborah Crombie (last two), Minette Walters, or P.D. James -- or even Elizabeth George for that matter.

The book reads like a screenplay -- which should be appreciated by TV buffs. Each chapter is an act, containing a 'scene or two. The set descriptions are good, although are a bit misplaced, i.e. the setting sun as mango hanging in the sky dripping juice at the soon-to-be death scene might have worked better in the scene where Cora was thinking about her long-dead RAF lover.

The writing in "Likeness in Stone" is not as rich as text by P.D. James, however, the plot moves along at a reasonable clip to a solid ending. In some of her books, James lingers over detail at the expense of a tangled ending, although she seems to have overcome that in her last two books.

Rating:
Summary: An entertaining story...
Review: Opting for a fair amount of character development and a solid plot, the author has created a thoroughly enjoyable book that I completed in one sitting. Avid mystery readers will probably ID the killer about half way through the book.

The supposed similarity of this book with those written by Minette Walters must be owing to plot elements such as: three suspects and a body found in water (the Breaker); or, a long dead body that brings a formerly frustrated cop back to harass the main suspects (The Ice House). However, the depth of character development found in Walters' better books is missing. And, the reader probably won't learn much from this book, unlike those by Deborah Crombie (last two), Minette Walters, or P.D. James -- or even Elizabeth George for that matter.

The book reads like a screenplay -- which should be appreciated by TV buffs. Each chapter is an act, containing a 'scene or two. The set descriptions are good, although are a bit misplaced, i.e. the setting sun as mango hanging in the sky dripping juice at the soon-to-be death scene might have worked better in the scene where Cora was thinking about her long-dead RAF lover.

The writing in "Likeness in Stone" is not as rich as text by P.D. James, however, the plot moves along at a reasonable clip to a solid ending. In some of her books, James lingers over detail at the expense of a tangled ending, although she seems to have overcome that in her last two books.

Rating:
Summary: Average
Review: This book was ok. For light reading I suppose it's good but it was too easy to figure out the identity of the murderer and, frankly, I was a bit bored

Rating:
Summary: Minette who? Julia Wallis Martin is incomparable. . .
Review: This is an engrossing mystery. If you are a fan of Minette Walters dark mysteries, A Likeness in Stone is also a book that you will enjoy. It is well written, with a sound plot that keeps the reader turning pages. I passed this book along to a friend, which is a good sign, because I share only the best! The author did a good job here, and I look forward to reading her next work.

Rating:
Summary: Gloomy but compelling thriller in Rendellian vein
Review: This was the debut novel from Julia Wallis Martin and it marked her out as another in the line of women writers from the UK exploring the same fictional territory as Rendell and McDermid.
It begins with the discovery of a body in a wardrobe in a house submerged under a reservoir near Oxford.It is that of Helena Warner,an attractive and sexually voracious undergraduate of Somerville College who had vanished some 19 years earlier following a student party.The officer in charge,Driver,suspected foul play-rightly-but had been unable to prove it.
Now retired,Driver is called in by the police to add knowledge and expertise.The years have not been kind to the students under suspicion at the time.One-Joan,a plain unattractive girl,has a failed career as a writer and lives on state benefits,being reduced to paying her rent with sexual favours,one- Wachmann-is a long term resident in an institution where he is under treatment for depression,while chief suspect Gilmore has developed into a commitment phobe with a mundane job.
The police probe away at the case ,causing ripples in all their lives bringing to the surface all the guilt and lack of closure in their subsequent lives.
Add the discovery of decomposed bodies in Warwickshire farmhouses and the murder of the mother of one of the students involved and the brew gets ever thicker and more opaque.
It is as much a character study and an examination of lives unfulfilled as it is a police procedural and the result is a densely wrought if oppressive novel whose debts to Rendell in particular are obvious.It does conclude on a note of qualified hope to ameliorate the gloom
It is perhaps somewhat too derivative but in a debut this is scarcely suprising and the weight and power of the book make it recommendable to lovers of the Brit hard boiled school

Rating:
Summary: Gloomy but compelling thriller in Rendellian vein
Review: This was the debut novel from Julia Wallis Martin and it marked her out as another in the line of women writers from the UK exploring the same fictional territory as Rendell and McDermid.
It begins with the discovery of a body in a wardrobe in a house submerged under a reservoir near Oxford.It is that of Helena Warner,an attractive and sexually voracious undergraduate of Somerville College who had vanished some 19 years earlier following a student party.The officer in charge,Driver,suspected foul play-rightly-but had been unable to prove it.
Now retired,Driver is called in by the police to add knowledge and expertise.The years have not been kind to the students under suspicion at the time.One-Joan,a plain unattractive girl,has a failed career as a writer and lives on state benefits,being reduced to paying her rent with sexual favours,one- Wachmann-is a long term resident in an institution where he is under treatment for depression,while chief suspect Gilmore has developed into a commitment phobe with a mundane job.
The police probe away at the case ,causing ripples in all their lives bringing to the surface all the guilt and lack of closure in their subsequent lives.
Add the discovery of decomposed bodies in Warwickshire farmhouses and the murder of the mother of one of the students involved and the brew gets ever thicker and more opaque.
It is as much a character study and an examination of lives unfulfilled as it is a police procedural and the result is a densely wrought if oppressive novel whose debts to Rendell in particular are obvious.It does conclude on a note of qualified hope to ameliorate the gloom
It is perhaps somewhat too derivative but in a debut this is scarcely suprising and the weight and power of the book make it recommendable to lovers of the Brit hard boiled school

Rating:
Summary: Amazing debut
Review: Twenty years ago Detective Chief Inspector Bill Driver was investigating the disappearance of Helena Warner. During the course of his investigation Driver was convinced that the girl was murdered and that her friends were protecting her killer. Due to lack of evidence the case was filed away.

Now, in the last few days, a pair of divers go inside the Marshfield Reservoir looking for treasures left by the former town residents that the lake now displaced. What they find is the body of Helena Warner hidden inside an old wardrobe. This opens up an old can of worms and it brings unwanted memories to the people who were close to Ms. Warner.

Throughout the novel the author shows how some of the characters were affected by Helena's disappearance. She does that by delving into the character's past and demonstrating how it affected them in the present. Some of them have been able to move on, others are still living in the past. The reopening of the investigation will bring a sense of closure to the main suspect who has been keeping a secret for many years. This character will be shell-shocked once he learns the truth. A LIKENESS IN STONE is a great debut novel by a promising author and this book deserves all the accolades it gets.