Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 19, 1995 TAG: 9502210034
SECTION: BOOK PAGE: G-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
By Edward Myers. Hyperion Books for Children. $14.95.
What do you do if you are stranded in a blizzard and your parents are badly hurt? Fourteen-year-old Danielle and her younger brother Jake do the only thing they can: go for help. In this case, help is a weather station 4,000 feet up Mount Remington.
They are ill-prepared for the expedition. But Danielle has recently completed a Mountain Mastery course, and Jake's hobby of improvising produces such necessary equipment as compass and belaying rope out of common tools. As Danielle and Jake climb, Edward Myers also explores their sibling rivalry and jealousies. He is a little awkward in the beginning, with their thoughts seeming forced and artificial; but after the accident, with more action to describe, he handles the balance between thoughts and action smoothly.
The book's weakest point is that the Darcy family seems to live in a vacuum. It's as if having decided a few key things, such as mountain mastery and gadget improvisations, Myers did not bother to invent any more. Myers has the humor right, though, from Jake's French waiter serving dog food to their arriving at the weather station and saying "Trick or treat." "Climb or Die" is his first novel for young adults.
- WENDY MORRIS
Poseidon's Gold.
By Lindsey Davis. Crown. $22.
Lindsey Davis' latest murder mystery once again features Marcus Didius Falco as the bumbling Roman investigator. The setting is Rome 72 A.D. Our hero is an imperial spy and informer who often works for the Roman Emperor Vespasian. When the story opens, Marcus has just returned to Rome from a six-month mission to the Roman legions in Germany, accompanied by his girl friend Helena Justina, the divorced daughter of a Roman senator. Although Helena and Marcus would like to marry, Helena's patrician family is not at all in favor. To be considered a serious suitor, Marcus needs an almost impossibly large sum of money to buy his way into the middle rank of Roman society. As an added complication, Marcus has become the chief suspect in a particularly brutal slaying of a legionnaire, who was a colleague at arms with Marcus' dead hero brother Festus.
The legionnaire was in Rome to collect a debt he claimed was owed to him and others in the legion by Festus, who, in today's vernacular, would be considered a "wheeler-dealer," a trait he has inherited from his father Geminus, a delightful old reprobate. (He abandoned his legitimate family some 20 years ago and ran off with a redhead to the Italian countryside.) Geminus is now a successful and renowned auctioneer back in Rome again. Against his better judgment, Falco has to join forces with his father to unravel the facts of his family history and his brother's somewhat shady art deals. The unraveling of both the murder and the doubtful art deals makes for an intriguing tale.
Perhaps it is being unduly critical but there are difficulties in setting a novel in the distant past. While the historical facts and geography of Rome are accurate, it is difficult to authentically reconstruct the demeanor and behavior of people living at that time. Davis ascribes 20th century behaviors and ideals to pre-Christian Romans which at times are at odds with their recorded actions and morals. That said, this book is sure to be compulsive reading for historical mystery readers and any lover of a good story.
Indeed the popularity of her previous four Falco novels have enabled Ms. Davis to give up her job in the British civil service, which she entered on leaving Oxford, and to concentrate upon her writing full time.
- JILL BOWEN
All My Suspects.
By Louise Shaffer. Putnam's. $19.95.
Do you think nothing could be fluffier than a soap opera? Try a murder mystery set on a soap opera stage written by a former soap actress.
Louise Shaffer appeared as Rae Woodard on "Ryan's Hope" and was on other soaps as well until she aged out of a profession that prizes youth. She has taken her experiences and turned them into a murder mystery. "All My Suspects" is a wicked look behind the scenes. When the daytime vice president for "Bright Tomorrow" is found naked, dead and with a gold lame rose attached to a portion of his anatomy, there is no lack of suspects. Almost every member of the cast and crew had a reason to wish Gregg Whithall dead. The show's producer, Angie DaVito, uses her background knowledge of the people involved and the world of soaps in general to help detective Teresa O'Hanlon, solve a very clever murder.
The lack of any real character development - most of the cast and crew of "Bright Tomorrow" remain interchangeable - is almost overcome by the well conceived denouement. Shaffer's knowledge of the inner workings of TV helps to make the shallow plot more interesting. This is promised as the first of a series, so perhaps the characters will gain more life in future novels.
- ANNA WENTWORTH
Wendy Morris lives in Blacksburg and works in Roanoke.
Jill Bowen lives in Blacksburg, and has a son living in Rome.
Anna Wentworth also reviews books and plays for WVTF-FM.
by CNB