Garden of Evil : A Britt Montero Novel (Britt Montero Mysteries)

Rating:
Summary: Britt knows her beat...and so does Buchanan!
Review:

This is my first encounter with Edna Buchanan's alter-ego, Britt Montero. Personally, I could never get past all the purchased (read: wigs) hair Buchanan wears for interviews and book tours, so I just didn't take her seriously enough to purchase her work.

The lady's obviously very bright, having won the Pulitzer, and she has the experience and talent to write about the underbelly of Miami, so why hide under all that obviously fake hair?

With that said....

I read the liner notes for this book and was intrigued that the serial killer was female and very, very good at what she does.

I disagree with Montero's decision that there is an "evil" gene. Mabye it was the sex at six years old that turned Keppie...or her mother's past....or the fact that she grew up unloved and unwanted...or maybe she saw what her mother did to those men...or mabye it was the taunt of the kids at school that first gave her the lust for blood.

I didn't have sympathy for Keppie, but I could certainly understand how she might be wired differently from the rest of the world.

I read the book in one sitting, and although I had some serious doubt about Britt's reluctance to free herself from the hostage situation, I liked the story and look forward to reading more about Britt's life as a reporter in a city that certainly contains a lot of dark and humid secrets yet to be told.

Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Not Buchanan's Best
Review: Britt Montero is back. It is a sizzling Miami summer. Rain is just a memory. Perhaps the heat has addled Montero's (or Buchanan's) brain.

Montero gets hooked up with a different (read female) serial killer. It is literally a long wild ride. As she explains to the four year old who is dragged along for part of it, sort of like Mr. Toad's ride at Disney.

There is something wrong with a book that has you rooting for the bad guy (or in this case gal). Here, the killer is a much more interesting character than the regulars or even the victims. The reader gets the feeling that the child was added in as a character because even Buchanan was developing too much sympathy for the devil.

There is no question that Buchanan can write. Her skillful character development, particularly of characters new to readers saves this book from total disaster. Still, technically there are HUGE glitches. In the version I read one character's last name switches annoyingly from Moran to Mason and back. Have her editors (if not Buchanan) ever HEARD of find and replace?

There is a theme "Evil lives forever" that Buchanan does back flips to endorse. Her thesis that some people just have an "evil gene" is simplistic at best, morally bankrupt if carried to extreme. She claims she cannot explain the killer's actions but for this paradigm. A junior high school student could explain to Buchanan how the killer's formative years as described in the book may have contributed to her behavior.

It is a credit to Buchanan's writing that we can be annoyed by her thesis, irritated by poor editing and still enjoy the read. Would I recommend it to others? Despite all, probably so. But it is NOT Buchanan's best.

Rating:
Summary: Not Buchanan's Best
Review: Britt Montero is back. It is a sizzling Miami summer. Rain is just a memory. Perhaps the heat has addled Montero's (or Buchanan's) brain.

Montero gets hooked up with a different (read female) serial killer. It is literally a long wild ride. As she explains to the four year old who is dragged along for part of it, sort of like Mr. Toad's ride at Disney.

There is something wrong with a book that has you rooting for the bad guy (or in this case gal). Here, the killer is a much more interesting character than the regulars or even the victims. The reader gets the feeling that the child was added in as a character because even Buchanan was developing too much sympathy for the devil.

There is no question that Buchanan can write. Her skillful character development, particularly of characters new to readers saves this book from total disaster. Still, technically there are HUGE glitches. In the version I read one character's last name switches annoyingly from Moran to Mason and back. Have her editors (if not Buchanan) ever HEARD of find and replace?

There is a theme "Evil lives forever" that Buchanan does back flips to endorse. Her thesis that some people just have an "evil gene" is simplistic at best, morally bankrupt if carried to extreme. She claims she cannot explain the killer's actions but for this paradigm. A junior high school student could explain to Buchanan how the killer's formative years as described in the book may have contributed to her behavior.

It is a credit to Buchanan's writing that we can be annoyed by her thesis, irritated by poor editing and still enjoy the read. Would I recommend it to others? Despite all, probably so. But it is NOT Buchanan's best.

Rating:
Summary: The Passenger Seat
Review: Edna Buchanan is a writer with a wonderful conversational style. Five minutes into reading her gripping non-fiction or her Britt Montero books and I feel like I'm back with an old friend. Buchanan doesn't disappoint in Garden of Evil. We are quickly caught up in Britt's hectic business life and almost non-existent personal life. We find her at a low point in her career as she is assigned tedious and demeaning stories and has to fight again to show her bosses what a great reporter she is.

This time she is on the trail of the Kiss Me Killer - a woman who murders sexually predatory men. Things begin to click and Britt is able to connect with the killer. After a disasterous meeting Britt is kidnapped by the killer and unfortunately this is when the books begins to fall badly.

The life seems to go out of the book as Britt becomes a passive captive watching the killer, Keppie, committ mayhem. Maybe there is an inherent problem in having the protagonist of a mystery series be quite so helpless. The same problem seemed to hurt L is for Lawless, Sue Grafton's only Kinsey Milhone misfire. There is also a hideous scene where Britt is aware that Keppie is going to murder a harmless man while Britt takes care of his very young child. Realistically there is probably nothing more that Britt can do but the scene is very creepy and the moral implications of Britt allowing the man to die without putting up more of a fight are never explored. The novel even ends passively with Britt having little to do with the capture of Keppie but again, uncomfortably, having some complicity in the death of another, far less innocent man.

Any book by Edna Buchanan is worth reading. But if you have never read one of her books before, I suggest that you start with an earlier Britt Montero book and come to this one later after you are already addicted to Buchanan's imminently readable prose.

Rating:
Summary: Dark departure for Britt Montero
Review: Edna Buchanan's latest Britt Montero novel is very different sans the usual suspects; e.g., Cuban patriots and expatriates. This time out, newspaperwoman Britt goes one on one with a female serial killer as she cuts a bloody swath across Florida. Killer Keppie Lee Hutton is about as warped a character as ever penned by the inimitable Ms. Buchanan. Her main criterion for killing is the mere existence of men who, responding to her sexy mannerisms and seductive come-ons, make love to her. Once the deed is done, this gruesome Southern black widow dispatches them painfully and messily. Her progress across the state into Miami, Britt's bailiwick, is charted by the missing vehicle of each new victim, since the previous victims' wheels are always found near the latest crime scene. Sound familiar? Keppie Lee has a dark and deadly past and a shocking family secret which Britt discovers only after she and a small child are taken as hostages on a joy ride from hell. Britt not only has the little boy to protect from Keppie's murderous mood swings, but is forced to fend off Keppie's amorous advances while helplessly watching this sick puppy scope out her new victims. Quick thinking and a 1-time window of opportunity provides Britt exactly 1 chance to save herself and the boy.

Keppie is finally captured in Barbados and, in a jailhouse confrontation back in Miami, reveals to Britt her final secret and ace in the hole, providing for a shocking but ambiguous ending. We may see Keppie Lee Hutton again.

This book is well plotted, quick paced, distressingly plausible and, while perhaps not one of Buchanan's best, is nonetheless highly entertaining and recommended.

Rating:
Summary: A shocker about three women
Review: Edna Buchanan's prose style catches me up and sweeps me along, every time. It's descriptive, accurate, tense. And usually, Buchanan's plots and characters catch me up as well.

But not this time. Keppie, the serial murderess, is so wierd and wired that she is only an oddity, evoking no empathy from the reader. Her victims gradually lose individuality and become one senseless victim after another. And Britt Montero, erstwhile girl journalist, ends up being stupid and self-indulgent: she does anything for the story, including ignoring those around her who desperately need her help.

So much for the characters. It's also true that there is no mystery. Keppie is a mass murderer. Britt is a girl reporter in a dangerous situation. Joey is a small boy who exists merely to arouse our sympathy, and then disappears. The cops are after everybody. They catch Keppie, free Britt, and send Joey home.

But for the masterful prose style of Edna Buchanan, this novel deserves a miss.

Rating:
Summary: A shocker about three women
Review: First there's Britt, our heroine. A self-actualized reporter enjoying her career and her on again/off again affair with a cop. Then there's Althea, the discarded trophy wife whose claims of being in peril are dismissed by everyone, including her family, as a pathetic plea for attention. Then there's Keppie, the sexpot serial killer (perhaps based on Aileen Wornoss -- sp?). What a thrill ride! As a fiction reader, I would have preferred it if Buchanan had tied up the loose ends a bit better -- was Britt ever investigated for the role as Keppie's accomplice, whatever happened to young Joey, does Keppie ever meet what seems to be her ultimate fate? But maybe the author handled it this way because this is how life is ... we don't always get the answers we want when we want them.

Rating:
Summary: A fast paced mystery/thriller
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed Garden of Evil, the first Edna Buchanan crime novel that I have read. The protagonist, Britt Montero, a reporter for a Miami newspaper who covers the police beat, obviously owes a great deal to Buchanan's own experience as an award winning crime reporter. The story is fast, the characters are interesting and the dialogue is crisp. This is the kind of entertaining read that many readers long for.

On the negative side, the plot is advanced by a series of coincidences that would make Dickens blush. And the fact that the book deals with a serial killer, at a time when the public at large is probably getting sick of that very overused topic, would have been more of a limitation except that this killer is female and her M.O. - leaving her male victims with their pants down and their genitals shot off - will strike an emotional chord, though not the same one, with male and female readers. The ending was something of an anti-climax after the very long and exciting buildup, but I had so much fun in the reading of the book that I didn't even think of that until later.

My wife insists that this is far from the best of Buchanan. If that is true, then her best must be very good indeed. For anyone who likes their crime fiction fast and on the gritty side, this is very entertaining fiction.

Rating:
Summary: A worthwhile read for mystery buffs.
Review: In her latest book, Garden Of Evil, Edna Buchanan's alter ego, Miami News police reporter Britt Montero (Buchanan's alter ego) gets lucky and follows a couple of Miami's finest to the site of a particularly gruesome murder. A politician of questionable character has been found in a rent-a-room-by-the-hour motel. He's been shot in very personal places, with pictures of his wife and kids left on strategic parts on the body. A Viagra pill nestles in the dead man's chest hairs. Britt would've normally been surprised at the killer's MO, but not this time. For the past few days, a woman knick-named the Kiss Me Killer been on the loose picking up unsuspecting men, having sex with them and then killing them in a most brutal fashion. Her public spree begins with a sheriff in northern Florida and continues as she makes her way south into Dade County, Britt's territory. Because she breaks the story in her paper, Britt eventually ends up in a dialogue with the killer, who wants Britt to tell her side of the story. In order to get the exclusive story, Britt agrees to meet with the woman. However, the police are involved, so Britt has to wear a wire. Of course, the killer is smart enough to outwit them all, and Britt ends up as her prisoner and the killing continues. The author lost me a bit when she brought an innocent child into the fray. Maybe she wanted the reader to know just how sick and twisted the killer was, but, to me it was a bit over the top. And I didn't really understand one of the subplots involving a former Orange Bowl Queen, but it didn't detract from the main story line. Although the ending was a bit unsatisfying, maybe the author was laying the groundwork for a sequel. I disagree with Britt's conclusion about there being "evil" gene that caused the killer to act out her fantasies. Maybe it was the sex at six years old that turned her...or her mother's past.... or the fact that she grew up unloved and unwanted...or maybe she saw what her mother did to those men...or maybe it was the taunt of the kids at school that first gave her the lust for blood. I didn't have sympathy for the killer, but I could certainly understand how she might be wired differently from the rest of the world. I read the book in one sitting, and although I have serious doubt about Britt's reluctance to free herself from the hostage situation, I liked the story and look forward to reading more about her life as a reporter in a city that certainly contains a lot of dark and humid secrets yet to be told. What a joke of a book....I don't know if you publish PANS, but I thought I'd send it along anyway... Terry H. Mathews Reviewer

Rating:
Summary: Some Good, Some Bad, Some Evil
Review: The small stories at the beginning of this book were the best part. In the main story line, the killer's character was well developed and believable but Britt as a hostage just did not ring true. Although Britt admits, at the end of the book, that her actions were foolish and irresponsible, it left me wondering how such a smart and savvy woman wouldn't have figured this out in the beginning. The ending came as no big surprise. This was a fairly interesting character study, but as a mystery it was sadly lacking