Anna Lee Huber is rightfully well known for her Lady Darby mysteries (The Anatomist's Wife and others). This book is the first entry in what I fervently hope will be another long and successful series.
An aside: it takes serious chops to stand in a ring and go a few rounds with Muhammad Ali, or share a stage with Eric Clapton holding a guitar, or have a paint-off duel with Matisse. Not a bit of hyperbole to say this book represents exactly that. Ms. Huber takes the classic Christie setting: remote English country house, on an island, isolated by a storm, cut off from help, tosses in a house party of odd characters absolutely resonating with unresolved history and sets it in the English interwar period.
The writing is solid. The pacing is perfect and the plot moves along at a clip. The research into place and setting are perfect. I truly enjoyed reading this book so very much. The 'rules' of the setting and mystery writing were adhered to and I hadn't worked it all out by the end of the book.
To be perfectly honest, I revere Agatha Christie (and Ngaio Marsh and Dorothy Sayers and all the grand dames of mystery). I think Huber has the potential to stand right up there with them. This book is wonderful with flashes of brilliance.
Five stars seem too few but five it is.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher.
No comments:
Post a Comment