Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 17, 1995 TAG: 9509150110
SECTION: BOOKS PAGE: F4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
By Penelope Williamson. Simon & Schuster. $22.50.
In 1879 Clementine Kennicutt, only child of an unforgiving minister father, elopes with a stranger, Gus McQueen. Brought up in Boston's Beacon Hill society, 17-year-old Clementine has always felt restless, and when she meets Gus, a real Montana cowboy-rancher, she leaves with her photographic equipment, a sachet containing gold coins from her oppressed mother and few regrets.
The Montana of the period offered little for women, especially for one such as Clementine who has been raised to know nothing of physical labor. But she is determined to avoid defeat even as hither-to-unimagined difficulties threaten to overwhelm her. One of the first of these turns out to be her must-be-hidden attraction to Gus' "hell-bent" brother Zach. Clementine must also encounter the bias of Montana "society" when she befriends an Indian girl, the female owner of the town's dance hall and a Chinese mail order bride.
Resourceful and courageous, Clementine grows with the country she learns to love in spite of tragedy. "Heart of the West" offers enough in the way of sheer romance to delight the most avid readers of romance novels. And the background shows the author's research into the times.
- HARRIET LITTLE
Iced.
By Carol Higgins Clark. Warner Books. $19.95.
Most of us inherit stuff from our mothers - fat thighs, lactose intolerance, whatever. But Carol Higgins Clark, daughter of suspense writer Mary Higgins Clark, has evidently inherited a propensity - if not the right connections - to be a successful author. "Iced," the third in her Regan Reily series, is an amusing little tale about life, a group of retro '50s types and art theft in Aspen, Colo. As a measure of the spun-sugar consistency of this novel, you need only look closely at the actual criminals in Clark's cast. They are either beautiful or attractively kooky.
Regan Reilly, whose fictional mother is a famous mystery writer, is invited with her parents to a Christmas skiing holiday in Aspen. Among the beautiful people who serve as their various hosts in the resort are some vicitms of art theft, some suspected art thieves and myriad adorable characters. There's a tangled weave of plot complication, secret pasts and a deus-ex-machina ending. Naturally, Regan, actually a private investigator in Los Angeles, straightens everything out.
At the risk of a bad pun, there's nothing remotely chilling about "Iced." There's little violence, no blood and certainly no sex, either. The stylized dialogue and fetchingly complicated plots, along with the well-shined characters remind me of the kind of writing you find in glossy women's magazines.
- JUDY KWELLER
The Odd Job.
By Charlotte MacLeod. Mysterious Press. $19.95.
"The Odd Job" is Charlotte MacLeod's 21st mystery novel, and once again features the husband and wife team of Sarah Kelling and Max Bittersohn, her two art sleuths.
On this occasion Max is in Argentina tracing two stolen Old Masters from the Walton Museum Collection. Sarah is left on her own to solve the murder of Dolores Tawne, the feisty administrator of the Walton. To her great surprise, Sarah is named as the only executor of Dolores' will. Not only was the murder committed with an old fashioned hat-pin but when said murder weapon is delivered anonymously to Sarah, she is more than a little frightened. Then her own obituary appears in the daily paper. Wearing a series of progressively wilder disguises, Sarah manages to piece together the train of events that led to the death of Dolores. The whole affair has all the elements of a typical farce, which is one of the hallmarks of MacLeod's many novels, and can be very entertaining.
The ramifications of the murder and the bizarre events surrounding it are not very convincingly explained and leave the reader feeling somewhat cheated. This is not one of Charlotte MacLeod's better mysteries. She has the irritating habit of presuming that the reader is familiar with all her other novels of the same genre and frequently refers to events and people that have appeared in previous mysteries. That may be fine for her dedicated fans, but for those who have either not read all her books, or have a short memory, it becomes more than a little aggravating.
- JILL BOWEN
Harriet Little teaches at James River High School.
Judy Kweller is a public-relations free-lancer.
Jill Bowen lives in Blacksburg.
by CNB