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Rating: 
Summary: A Matter of Roses is a Rare Find
Review: A MATTER OF ROSES is wonderful stuff--a multidimensional mystery that grips even non-mystery buffs. Following Peter Ellis' Brother Cadfael tradition, the book features as sleuth Brother Bartholomew, a monk at Faith Abbey. The story opens with Green Beret Mac Curtis'love for Nurse Susan, a love engendered principally by her recognition of the hurt boy beneath Curtis' macho veneer. Sue rejects his advances and falls in love with Maurice Thomlinson, a frail, idealistic botanist who health and career are wrecked because of the "witches brew" he was ordered to concoct to defoliate the Vietnamese. After the war, these three end up on Cape Cod. In an inherited cottage, Susan is nursing Maurice, her invalid husband. Mac Curtis, now married to the dynamic Allison, is planning a real estate development, Teal Pond. Other characters in the seaside town include eccentrics such as a commodore whose cannon the sheriff locks up because of the naval officer's inappropriate firings and a failed writer turned recluse and radical ecologist. Mac Curis contrives a rose contest and a party to obtain backers for Teal Pond. When Sue again rejects him, Curtis drinks, turns ugly, then frightens his guests with a vicious description of how to gut a person with a kinfe. His indiscretion costs him financial backing for Teal Pond, and the project flops. Never the nice guy, Mac Curtis' partners, Tobin and Cal, are stunned to learn that although they are ruined, Curtis is not. Through a slight of hand involving fine print in the contract his partners signed, Mac Curtis has protected himself at their expense. When Curtis turns up dead in a marsh, no one is sorry, and everyone is suspect. When his wife, Allison, is also murdered, the town becomes frantic. The sheriff informally enlists Brother Barholomew in the investigation, a welcome distraction for the monk torn between his vows of celibacy and the sudden reappearance of a lost love. The superbly crafted plot keeps the reader on edge right up to its explosive climax and poetic denouement. What makes A MATTER OF ROSES much better than an ordinary mystery is the way Manuel describes the settings--the coffee shop, the dunes, the abbey's Fourth of July celebration--and the characters' battles. Brother Bartholomew struggles with his soul; the sheriff fends off a coup in the police department. Tobin deals with his disturbing marriage, Cal's wife with sudden loss and alcholism. The reader becomes involved with these conficts as well as with Brother Bartholomew and the sheriff's quest for the killer. A MATTER OF ROSES is that rare find--a wonderful present for almost everyone on your gift list, including yourself. Don't miss it.
Rating:
Summary: A Book You Will Not Want to Put Down!
Review: A truly good read with plenty of surprises! The plot is captivating -- emotionally charged. The characters are well-developed, drawing the reader in. You feel as though you are a part of their lives -- so much so that you can personally identify with one or more, and find traits of friends, and even enemies, in the others! The setting is the fictitious town of Eastport on glorious Cape Cod -- delightfully familiar to the many who have visitied her quaint towns, and inviting to those who have always longed to! I am eagerly anticipating the sequel that I might catch up on the people and events of Eastport!
Rating:
Summary: A "Must Buy" for mystery lovers!
Review: As an avid reader of WELL-written mystery stories, this book fulfilled all my expectations. The characters were developed with such depth and perception, that I felt I knew them. The mystery was intriguing, and kept me guessing right until the end. For those who love Elizabeth George, Martha Grimes, Patricia Cornwell, John Lescroart and others, you will not be disappointed. The mystery takes place in the fictional town of Eastport on Cape Cod, at an abbey named "Faith Abbey". Although I've heard it compared to the Ellis Peters series, this book is every bit as delightful, yet refreshingly different. I highly reccomend it!
Rating: 
Summary: Murder Mystery covers up a sermon
Review: David Mauel should stick to writing about the natural world instead of trying to add his feelings and opinions onto a murder story. The action doesn't occur until so far into the book that one is left wondering what the mystery is. Then he spends so much time going through all the details it gets tiresome. The descriptions are fine, although I am not familiar with Cape Cod, but his writing style would be more fitted to a document in a magazine. There was so much opportunity to make the love between Andrew and Laurel beautiful, but he just dropped it in. Read it if nothing better is handy. I read it only because I agreed to give a report on it for our book club.
Rating: 
Summary: Adequate first mystery
Review: Having grown up in Massachusetts, I can appreciate an author like this one who can bring Cape Cod to life. Less than a decade ago, a mystery writer relayed that her publisher had two taboos about the genre: no kids get killed and no animals. This one violates one of these. I think you are apt to identify the culprit well before the authorities do, and there's a rather unsatisfying, over-the-top coda to the book before the arrest occurs. But with the setting and many of the recurring characters so satisfyingly introduced, you will probably enjoy it. I've read the next two entries in the series as well, and they are very much of the same character: a little over-the-top, and especially in the third adventure, not quite enough sleuthing by the central character, a monk in an ecumenical Cape Cod abbey. These books are somewhat better as novels than as mysteries.
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Summary: Brother, can you spare the time?
Review: I would truly like to spend some time with Brother Bartholomew, the engaging amateur sleuth in "A Matter of Roses". Preferably over coffee at Norma's Café where his mother waits table and keeps tab on who is saying what about whom in the Cape Cod community of Eastport. I would ask Brother Bartholomew about what the building craze is doing to the pristine Cape Cod I knew and loved many years ago, about life in an ecumenical religious community and, of course, about dastardly murder. These are just some of the buds and thorns of "A Matter of Roses". The story is real enough that I can't be sure whether Brother Bartholomew is a creation of David Manuel or if David Manuel is the good Brother's nom de plume. In either event, this cerebral sleuth in his modern-day monastary is anything but cloistered as he tracks down the murderer in this nicely-paced novel.
Rating:
Summary: Cape Cod, a cliff hanger mystery, conflict of love and faith
Review: If you love Cape Cod, a Matter of Roses is for you. Manuel's style and voice feel like your most comfortable and cherished moccasins. Add to that a stimulating and fun, first rate mystery, and you have a must read novel.
Rating:
Summary: Cape Cod, a cliff hanger mystery, conflict of love and faith
Review: If you love Cape Cod, a Matter of Roses is for you. Manuel's style and voice feel like your most comfortable and cherished moccasins. Add to that a stimulating and fun, first rate mystery, and you have a must read novel.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful gripping suspense novel
Review: The town of Eastport has just had its' first murder in 47 years. The most hated man on the island, a developer naturally, Mac Curtis is found dead by Teal Pond. The murder weapon, a custom made knife he used in Vietnam, is missing, and the trouble has only just begun. There are innumerable suspects, from his wife and partners to a local enviromentalist. The Chief of Police needs help he can't get from his own department, his second in command is a raving egomaniac without the intelligence to match his ego. So, the Chief turns to his childhood friend, the monk, Brother Bartholomew, to help him. Brother Bartholomew has problems of his own, from the past and present, but he agrees to help his old friend. This was a very suspenseful mystery. You never knew the killer's indentity until the author wanted you to know. There was plenty of action in between. A very fast and enjoyable read.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful gripping suspense novel
Review: The town of Eastport has just had its' first murder in 47 years. The most hated man on the island, a developer naturally, Mac Curtis is found dead by Teal Pond. The murder weapon, a custom made knife he used in Vietnam, is missing, and the trouble has only just begun. There are innumerable suspects, from his wife and partners to a local enviromentalist. The Chief of Police needs help he can't get from his own department, his second in command is a raving egomaniac without the intelligence to match his ego. So, the Chief turns to his childhood friend, the monk, Brother Bartholomew, to help him. Brother Bartholomew has problems of his own, from the past and present, but he agrees to help his old friend. This was a very suspenseful mystery. You never knew the killer's indentity until the author wanted you to know. There was plenty of action in between. A very fast and enjoyable read.
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