Larkspur: A Mystery

Rating:
Summary: Murder, romance and family connections
Review: A competently written formula mystery, this author showes an excelent grasp of skills needed to interweave complex family and emotional ties into the story. Lark is a book store owner who is invited to a wealthy old man's mountain estate because of her mother's status as a poet. Her boyfriend comes too. Natually, there are some murders, which Lark sort of/somehow gets involved in solving. This story surprised me with the twists of the plot, always logical but unexpected. The "lark" series reminds me of Charlotte McCleod's Max and Sarah Bittersjohn stories but with a more brooding flavor.

Rating:
Summary: Murder, romance and family connections
Review: A competently written formula mystery, this author showes an excelent grasp of skills needed to interweave complex family and emotional ties into the story. Lark is a book store owner who is invited to a wealthy old man's mountain estate because of her mother's status as a poet. Her boyfriend comes too. Natually, there are some murders, which Lark sort of/somehow gets involved in solving. This story surprised me with the twists of the plot, always logical but unexpected. The "lark" series reminds me of Charlotte McCleod's Max and Sarah Bittersjohn stories but with a more brooding flavor.

Rating:
Summary: Writer with an eye for detail
Review: I picked this book up expecting a throwaway cozy, and was pleasantly suprised by the richness of detail Simonson employed. She uses detail in a way that many writers in the genre are too lazy or unable to carry off-- just the little touches, like the description of the basil in Angharad's garden, really made the book stand out.

Unfortunately, the book had two major strikes against it:

1. Too high of a body count-- it started to feel gratuitous at a certain moment.

2. The plot falls apart almost completely at the end-- I had figured out who the killer had to be, but had no idea of the motivation. After reading the ending, I *still* had no idea about the motivation. The conclusion of the book was so unclear that I was actually annoyed that I'd stayed up so late to finish it.

Lark, the owner of a bookshop in Northern California is invited, together with her policeman boyfriend, to a party at the house of noted poet Dai Llewellyn. When he unexpectedly dies and it becomes clear that it wasn't his heart, Lark is pulled into a mystery from the past that would eventually threaten the people she loves.

Simonson deserves another chance as a writer for the finer qualities of the book, but I hope that there's an improvement in her plotting skills between this book and the next.