Cruel As The Grave (A Silver Dagger Mystery)

Rating:
Summary: An absorbing debut mystery
Review: Cruel As The Grave by Dean James

Maggie McLendon is surprised when a letter from her father's Aunt Helen bearing bad news of the health of her Grandfather Henry McLendon, gains little reaction from her father Gerard. Although, Maggie had met her Aunt Helen on two occasions, she had learned as a child that the rest of the family was a taboo subject. However, she reasoned, if her Grandfather was seriously ill, this could be her only chance to meet him and on this point she takes a firm stance.

Arriving with her father at the McLendon family home, Maggie is stunned and disconcerted at how wealthy the family must be, a fact concealed by her father. Welcomed eagerly by her Aunt Helen and with varying degrees of interest, disinterest and hostility by the other members of the family, Maggie starts to get to know her new family.

At her first meal with the family, Maggie becomes quickly aware of the tensions and hostility harboured by the various members. When murder strikes within a short time of their arrival, and with her father under suspicion, Maggie starts to investigate. She uncovers in this beautiful Southern home, secrets, bitterness, and maybe someone hides a need for revenge.

Dean has woven an absorbing debut mystery. The characterisation was brilliant, and as Maggie discovers more and more about the family members I kept changing my mind as to the murderers identity. I did think at one point that I worked it out, but as I read on I began to have doubts, so I had to start again.

Highly recommended. Lizzie Hayes

Rating:
Summary: Lacks substance
Review: I was disappointed in this book. The characters are so flat that I couldn't keep the heroine's relatives straight. The gothic Southern atmosphere vaunted on the book cover isn't there.

Rating:
Summary: A British country house mystery set in the American South ==
Review: Suppose that Dame Agatha Christie had allowed her wonderful creation,
Miss Jane Marple, to have married when that lady was young, and the
happy couple had a child. (Certainly Miss Marple would NEVER have had
a child without having first been married!) Had this happened, it
would not then be too much of a stretch to also imagine that Miss
Magnolia Amelia McLendon could be the grand-daughter or perhaps great
grand-daughter of said Miss Marple. Intelligent, a keen observer of
both her surroundings and the people who inhabit those surroundings,
Maggie is yet a modern young miss, working on her pre-Ph.d exams,
when her life is turned upside down. A letter from the only aunt
she's ever known, her father's Aunt Helena--pleads with them to
return to the family home in Jackson, Mississippi, for two reasons.
One is the illness of the family patriarch, Maggie's grandfather, who
is, after all 80 years old, but the bigger news is that the 27
year-long breach in the family is ready to be mended.

For a variety
of reasons, all of this family history is news to Maggie, and she
urges her father, Gerard, to accept the invitation, and to include
both of them in the visit. He grudgingly accepts, inadvertently
setting off modern-day reactions to events of long ago, including a
previously unsuspected murder.

From the very first person she
meets--Adrian Worthington--driver/butler/whatever, but all too
intriguing, through aunts, uncle, cousins--the ambiance of the South
is never far from the surface, although the family secrets are
anything but that. Using the legacy of Miss Marple, (for whom both the
author and his characters freely profess a fondness) Maggie patiently
sorts through all the events, both current and past, to find the
solution.

It is rare indeed, for an author to begin with
award-winning non-fiction, proceed to highly-praised short fiction,
then graduate to a full-length mystery story, but what a pleasure this
journey by Dean James provides for us all. If you, too, share a
fondness for the works of Dame Agatha, or any of the other past
classical mistresses of mystery, you should also enjoy this
wonderfully civil, witty and well-written recreation of the classical
British country house mystery novel. It's just been transported to
the American South, that's all!