The Murder Stone

Rating:
Summary: Frustratingly close to being a really good book...
Review: In spite of page-to-page writing skill, ability to create atmosphere, and an obvious emotional connection to the post-World-War-I England of which he writes, Charles Todd fails to come up with a winner in "The Murder Stone." When a mystery enthralls, readers are willing to suspend disbelief, but here the overlong and familiar story and the underdeveloped characterizations foil involvement. By the end of the book, I didn't care who the villain was or why. What the author probably meant to be enigmatic in the conclusion, I just found irritating. Really too bad, because there are the ingredients of a good book in there somewhere!

Rating:
Summary: Good Writing, Characters & Plot Sacrificed on Murder Stone
Review: Ok, maybe it's not quite as bad as my title suggests, but this is a weak effort all around. I've previously enjoyed Todd's Ian Rutledge mysteries, which is partly why this one has come as such a disappointment. Todd has a proven record of well-written, intriguing mysteries that excel at capturing the world-weary, soul-draining experience that was WWI, and the effects, especially on the survivors. This is not one of them.

Where in previous books the war's experience has been a crucible to shape the main character/s, in the Murder Stone it has affected only the periphery of the protagonist, Francesca Hatton, who has lost her five cousins to bloody battles and spent time tending the wounded as a Red Cross worker. Her antagonist, Richard Leighton is himself invalided out of the war and expected to die, yet his experience seems to have touched little of his character.

While uninteresting main characters aren't going to completely derail a good mystery, the lack of that, as well as an entertaining plot is sure to sink a story. Supposedly there are many dark secrets that Francesca's beloved grandfather has kept hidden from her, which are now only coming to life after his death. Unfortunately the dark secrets aren't terribly compelling, aren't well presented, and are downright melodramatic. He was the sponsor of an orphanage! He might have cheated a man out of his estate! Francesca is menaced by mean men and fortune-hunting women! Rather than use a well-written narrative to let the secrets unfold, Todd chooses the clumsy insertion of first-person chapters by the deceased cousins and grandfather (who are shamefully reduced to stereotypes: The Engineer, The Explorer, The Soldier, etc as if Todd couldn't be troubled to actually make them compelling minor characters), which were as pointless as they were irritating.

Numerous side stories are planted to provide some cover for the mystery, but they are weedy, ill-grown things and amount to little in the end. The whole, Cousin-Peter-May-Be-Alive-But-Deranged plot was useless, diversionary and unfulfilling. The infamously named Murder Stone turns out to have little significance considering that it warranted a mention in the will and the absurdity of having it shipped to Scotland. Also, I find it difficult to buy that a woman of Francesca's breeding would ever considering marrying her half-brother, no matter how much her need to make him happy, and the less said about that overtly melodramatic and unlikely plot device, the better..

Perhaps the book's biggest sin (besides being uninteresting and poorly written) is that it raises, but ultimately neglects, the most potentially complex and substantive issue: exploring the idea the 'adopted' cousins were better men than the blood sons of Hatton. The World Wars were the shock that helped dismantle the class-consciousness of Britain and that theme again would have tied in nicely with the adoption angle and could have really fleshed out the plot, besides fitting in well with Todd's own earlier explorations of the ramifications of WWI. Alas, that is not to be. Instead we get The Murder Stone.

Rating:
Summary: A superb standalone historical mystery
Review: The Ian Rutledge series is one of the strongest historical mystery series in the genre. However, it has been my impression that the series is becoming a bit tired. There is not much more than can be done, in my opinion, with the series unless in some way Rutledge changes. So it is especially refreshing to see the Todds- Charles and Mom, Caroline, going in a slightly different direction with this particularly effective and atmospheric stand alone.
In Devon, 1916 the effects of the First World War are being felt particularly hard. The young men are dying in battle and disappearing from the rural countryside. The loss is particularly harsh to Francesca Hatten who has lost five of her cousins. Now the man who raised her, her grandfather Francis Hatten, has passed away and with Francesca as his only heir, she receives everything. Among the possessions given to her by her solicitor is a hate letter to her grandfather. Why did he keep it? Furthermore, at the funeral a young man shows up and claims her grandfather murdered his mother. Could this be true?
THE MURDER STONE is a slow, ponderous and complex mystery steeped in the historical era in which it occurs. The extensive list of characters in the front of the book might indicate just how complex the book might be. However, each character is so well developed that the list is quite superfluous. (This type of list could certainly prove helpful in so many other mysteries being published today but not this one.) As with the Rutledge books, the reader spends almost the entire book in the rural countryside. Two attempts Francesca makes to get into London are foiled (the first by a Zeppelin raid and the second by an injury). So wartime London is never described. Yet, the countryside is painted so realistically that the reader will welcome the ponderous pacing of the book. It is rural England during W.W.I that the Todds do so well and this is quite evident in this superb standalone. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: A disappointing Charles Todd novel
Review: The plot of this novel doesn't really hold together into an integrated whole. The book rambled on far too long. Most of the inserts by the cousins were irrelevant; the shooter episodes didn't really further the plot and the entire shooter subplot could have been eliminated without damage to the plot. Does it really matter plot-wise that one of the cousins, now a wee bit mad, has returned? Even the Murder Stone does little to hold the plot together--it's just not made that important in the novel. Furthermore,the last one third of the novel went on and on, and the book's ending stretched credulity to the limit.

Characterization, for Todd, was quite poor. Leighton was little more than a stick figure, albeit, romantic, but still never a real person. Most of the other character came off the same way, wooden sticks wending their way through the novel. Not even the villianess fared any better. Of all the characters, only Francesca and Stevens, the rector, were given human touches. On the bright side, the book is a page turner and kept me going at a good pace; it's only later on that the book runs out of steam and so do you.

I will look forward to the new Rutledge novel, hoping that it will not be as
overdone as this one is.



Rating:
Summary: not his best
Review: the reviewer who was less than enchanted with this book makes many very good points, most of which i agree with. many of the plot twists are beyond hackneyed (antagonism turns to love, solitary heroine saves day), too much time is spent investigating the charges, not enough time is spent with the major plot twist, and the ending is completely unbelievable and unrealistic (since the heroine is not a sociopath). the village "characters" are undeveloped and there are scenes that are thrown in just for effect and not for any compelling narative developement. if the short apprearances of the dead cousins were supposed to be affecting reminders of all that was lost on the blood-sodden fields of france, they were too abrupt and too manipulative to move me (but then, i have family stories of trench warfare to draw on). the book might have been better had it been longer, or maybe only if it had been more focused. it seems a bit slapdash and there's also a hint of authorly 'how many plot devices can i shoehorn into this thing?'

although i enjoyed the writing enough to stay up much too late to finish the book, i won't be keeping this one in my library.

Rating:
Summary: not his best
Review: the reviewer who was less than enchanted with this book makes many very good points, most of which i agree with. many of the plot twists are beyond hackneyed (antagonism turns to love, solitary heroine saves day), too much time is spent investigating the charges, not enough time is spent with the major plot twist, and the ending is completely unbelievable and unrealistic (since the heroine is not a sociopath). the village "characters" are undeveloped and there are scenes that are thrown in just for effect and not for any compelling narative developement. if the short apprearances of the dead cousins were supposed to be affecting reminders of all that was lost on the blood-sodden fields of france, they were too abrupt and too manipulative to move me (but then, i have family stories of trench warfare to draw on). the book might have been better had it been longer, or maybe only if it had been more focused. it seems a bit slapdash and there's also a hint of authorly 'how many plot devices can i shoehorn into this thing?'

although i enjoyed the writing enough to stay up much too late to finish the book, i won't be keeping this one in my library.

Rating:
Summary: Fast paced
Review: This is a rattling good story, well told. The writer, departing from his previous Ian Rutledge series, this time explores the world of Francesca Hatton, a young heiress who finds her previously ordered world crashing down around her. She has to discover the truth about her grandfather - truth that seems both hidden and horrific.

Set in the time of World War 1, a period that resonates for the writer, the novel traces the maturing of Francesca in a world where her five male cousins and close childhood playmates have been killed in the war and where damaged men return from the battlefields struggling to pick up the pieces of their lives. The horror of the war and its carnage are never far away.

Plot and characters are all well developed and the pacing is good throughout. I thoroughly enjoyed this story. My only quibble would be that the male writer loses touch with Francesca towards the end, and doesn't fully enter the emotional world of a young woman contemplating marriage.

Other than this, it is an exciting tale, told with wit and insight.