Discovering the Body

Rating:
Summary: The New York Times Book Review
Review: "The suspense builds from the first pages of Mary Howard's debut novel--a book so sure handed and graceful that you might forget it's a murder mystery...Howard creates an intricate cast of characters, any one of whom might have killed the artistic, flirtatious victim. Strong dialogue gives us insight into the shifting relationships here, and into Linda's marriage to Charlie, Luci's boyfriend at the time of the murder. Charlie thinks Linda is being paranoid. But the reader shares her increasing uncertainty about her friends, and her facts."

Rating:
Summary: Fine novel, thrilling mystery
Review: I read the other reviews about this book which inspires a lively debate and opinions that are poles apart. After reading Mary Howard's debut novel, I confess to being of two minds! This thriller explores primarily the hazardous process of memory as a tool of evidence. On a hot, summer afternoon just outside a small, dusty town, artist Linda Garbo discovers the body of friend Luci, sprawled in the blood-drenched kitchen of her home. Her recollection of the events leading to this discovery helps convict neighbour Peter Garvey of the murder. But Linda, who subsequently married Luci's boyfriend and, oddly, lives in the house where the crime took place, has nagging doubts about Garvey's guilt. So does a local newspaper reporter. They become wary allies on the path to solving the mystery. In the beginning we know little of the murder victim's life, but by the end of the book a complex portrait has been drawn of a wayward, brutalised soul, as her personal diary is placed into Linda's hands and another powerful set of memories is revealed. Her diary implicates family and the residents in a small town which seems to be a hotbed of crime, perversion and paranoia. Any number of people had reasons to kill Luci. Howard spares adjectives and relies on resonant simplicity. Some of the time it works well and her writing is vibrantly alive in Luci's diary. However, I did find some passages woodenly constructed, as if Howard had tried too hard to pare her writing back. Where I expected suspense, there was a void. Linda's relationship with husband Charlie lacked credibility. However this is still a page-turning thriller that will serve well for holiday fare.

Rating:
Summary: A body of evidence for both sides
Review: I read the other reviews about this book which inspires a lively debate and opinions that are poles apart. After reading Mary Howard's debut novel, I confess to being of two minds! This thriller explores primarily the hazardous process of memory as a tool of evidence. On a hot, summer afternoon just outside a small, dusty town, artist Linda Garbo discovers the body of friend Luci, sprawled in the blood-drenched kitchen of her home. Her recollection of the events leading to this discovery helps convict neighbour Peter Garvey of the murder. But Linda, who subsequently married Luci's boyfriend and, oddly, lives in the house where the crime took place, has nagging doubts about Garvey's guilt. So does a local newspaper reporter. They become wary allies on the path to solving the mystery. In the beginning we know little of the murder victim's life, but by the end of the book a complex portrait has been drawn of a wayward, brutalised soul, as her personal diary is placed into Linda's hands and another powerful set of memories is revealed. Her diary implicates family and the residents in a small town which seems to be a hotbed of crime, perversion and paranoia. Any number of people had reasons to kill Luci. Howard spares adjectives and relies on resonant simplicity. Some of the time it works well and her writing is vibrantly alive in Luci's diary. However, I did find some passages woodenly constructed, as if Howard had tried too hard to pare her writing back. Where I expected suspense, there was a void. Linda's relationship with husband Charlie lacked credibility. However this is still a page-turning thriller that will serve well for holiday fare.

Rating:
Summary: An Engrosing and Complex Psychological Thriller
Review: Linda Garbo comes home to find her friend Luci Cole dead on the kitchen floor with her throat slashed and a bloody knife lying close to the body. She believes she has seen the murderer and her testimony leads to neighbor Peter Garvey's conviction, even though he claimed that he didn't do it.

The murder and it's aftermath throw Linda and Luci's lover, beekeeper Charlie Carpenter together and they marry two years after the trial. Then local reporter John Bender, who believes Garvey was wrongly convicted, talks Linda into meeting with the man she testified against. Garvey, who has admitted that he was Luci's spurned lover, casts doubts into Linda's mind about whether or not she got it right when she testified against him.

Linda starts investigating Luci's life, determined to vindicate herself. However she's soon confronted by the knowledge that she knows little about who her friend was and as she sifts the evidence, she gradually concedes her identification of Luci's killer was a mistake and her effort to find out the truth places her own life in danger.

Mary Howard has written an engrossing and complex psychological thriller that kept my up till dawn. I liked it very much and I think you will too.

Reviewed by Judith Ann Cole

Rating:
Summary: I beg to disagree
Review: Mary Howard's thoughtful mystery, "Discovering the Body", is carefully crafted and requires the reader to pay close attention. The narrator, Linda, is an artist who notices lines, colors, details. She is remarkably observant about outer details, but is uninformed, even naive, about inner details, about the emotional component of situations, about the true feelings of people. In these pages, we follow her inward journey as she learns more about the people of her small Iowa town. In the process she learns more about herself and how she is perceived by others. As Howard's tale unfolds, some mysteries are revealed. Other matters are left ambiguous. Howard's book, in the style of Ruth Rendell, makes demands on the reader: Some "facts" must be inferred, and other surprising facts must be assimiliated into the general plot. "Discovering the Body" is not a quick, toss-away pleasure, but it offers satisfaction to the patient reader.

Rating:
Summary: well-paced and haunting
Review: This book is much better than a typical murder mystery, offering not only suspense but also a nuanced portrait of the grief and fear that follow a murder. Howard's novel takes a lot of surprising twists and turns, yet always remains plausible. The main character, Linda, is an interesting heroine; she is neither damsel in distress nor crime expert. Thankfully, the book doesn't get bogged down in macabre details like so many recent mysteries, but the threat of danger throughout the novel was enough to make me keep the light on all night.

Rating:
Summary: Deeper Than Typical Suspense
Review: With Discovering the Body, Mary Howard has created a very literate suspense novel. While many suspense and mystery novels are formulaic and the language seems designed to appeal to the least common denominator, Howard defies tradition and creates a well written novel with fully developed characters. Because of this, the novel moves more slowly than many typical suspense novels but the experience seems to run a little deeper than most as well. The action is slow and the revelations are few and far between but this does not count against the novel as a whole. If you're tired of formulaic suspense novels or mysteries, try Discovering the Body. And if you're a fan of well written fiction, you'll like it as well.