ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, May 26, 1996 TAG: 9605240005
SECTION: BOOKS PAGE: 5 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: BOOK REVIEW
BOOKMARKS
Mystery unfolds on Applachian farm
McCrumb Reviewed by MIKE MAYO|
THE ROSEWOOD CASKET. By Sharyn McCrumb. Dutton. $23.95.
"The Rosewood Casket" is a novel about land and the unforgiving economic realities of the Appalachian family farm. It's also McCrumb's best book to date, a subtle and carefully crafted mystery. The regional considerations are part of a plot that unfolds gracefully and ends in a remarkable revelation.
Aging farmer Randall Stargill lies near death, dreaming of his troubled past, in a hospital bed. His four grown sons - a soldier, a country singer, a car salesman, a local historian - gather at the homestead and find that their father has left complicated instructions for the handling of his death. The most important element is a casket he wants them to build by hand from a cache of rosewood lumber.
Then there's the matter of another rosewood box - older and smaller - with its mysterious contents.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about McCrumb's "ballad" books is the way she has avoided repetition. In most successful mystery series, the author establishes strong protagonists, then tells and retells variations of the same plot, giving readers a comforting sense of familiarity. McCrumb hasn't done that. Of course, Sheriff Spencer Underwood, Joe LeDonne and Nora Bonesteel play important roles, particularly at the beginning and end, but this novel doesn't depend on them. And readers don't need to know anything of the earlier books; this one is a fine entry point for the series.
The novel's flaws are minor, more personal quibbles than objective criticism. At times, the unapologetic Appalachian chauvinism calls attention to itself, and readers not already interested in the subject will learn more about Daniel Boone than they ever wanted to know.
At the same time, McCrumb handles the supernatural elements of her story so deftly that they won't bother even the most hardened skeptic. Her treatment and understanding of the male characters is much deeper than it's been in the earlier books. (Joe LeDonne is becoming a much more complex, interesting figure.) And the plotting of this novel is virtually flawless.
The first chapters have a measured, almost lyrical pace. Then midway through, the novel changes in one surprising plot twist and physical action becomes more important. The conclusion weaves both strands together, also combining past and present to show that the problems of the men and women of the region are not new. In one form or another, they have existed ever since people laid claim to the land and it laid claim to them.
Mike Mayo also reviews films
and videos for this newspaper.
Sharyn McCrumb lives in Shawsville and has reviewed books for this newspaper. On April 28 she was presented the Agatha Christie Award for her previous novel, "If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him ..." which was recently released in paperback. Last year she won the Agatha for "She Walks These Hills."
Updike|
Hero in Updike's `Lilies' rescues cult members from compound |Reviewed by| |KATHLEEN RATLIFF|
IN THE BEAUTY OF THE LILIES. By John Updike. Knopf. $25.95.
The span of John Updike's interests, knowledge and intricate research of subject matter is ever impressive, and his 17th novel is no exception.
If there is a theme to this engrossing novel, it is two-fold, centering on the movies, with strong threads of religion intertwined.
It opens in 1910, continues through 1990, and focuses on four generations of the most diverse individuals imaginable.
It begins with the filming of the Hollywood production of "The Call to Arms" in the small town of Paterson, N.J., where Clarence Wilmot, "the father of them all" is a devout, conservative Presbyterian minister.
Wilmot loses his religion, gives up his ministry and becomes an encyclopedia salesman, earning little income. Discouraged, he ultimately spends his time in the movie houses and becomes a film addict.
His son, Teddy, struggles to find his place and eventually becomes a postman. Teddy marries his adored Emily and produces Esther, "Essie" - a lovely, joyous child, adored by all, who quickly learns the ways of "getting ahead" and soon becomes a top-ranking movie star.
Participating in the wantonness of the elite moviemakers, she engages in multiple marriages and begets Clark, named after the popular Gable.
Clark is a sadly neglected child, raised with pop musicians and drug users, who ponders religion and eventually finds himself involved with the extremist cult of a bible-quoting, self-proclaimed prophet named Jesse. Jesse extols anything connected with the government and keeps followers mesmerized in captivity in the Lower Branch Compound.
Clark ultimately become a hero in the fiery, fatalistic explosion of the compound when he kills the murdering Jesse and sets the survivors free, all in full view of the major networks.
Updike continues to astound fans and nonfans with his sporadic pagelong paragraphs and lengthy sentences. Many will recognize themselves or relatives in this 80-year saga of family members who begin as opposites and end in similarities, but they will not be disappointed.
Kathleen Ratliff is a former
English teacher.
Village manners give humor to murder mystery
Tea, murder and revenge |Reviewed by JERE REAL|
MRS. MALORY WONDERS WHY. By Hazel Holt. Dutton. $20.95.
An elderly woman is found dead in her home, her life having been snuffed out by a poisoner who fed her deadly almond tartlets. Later, a village fireworks festival is the scene of a murderous explosion that kills yet another woman.
Such are the motivations for the latest, the sixth, in the series of Mrs. Malory mysteries by Hazel Holt set in one of those colorful English villages made so popular with American readers by the late Agatha Christie and her Miss Marple series.
Village teas, social gatherings and gossip are the invariable ingredients of this kind of mystery, and Holt works this vein of British eccentricity to its fullest in her Mrs. Malory series.
This time, murder is bound up in ambitious plans for real-estate developments, a lost daughter's desire for revenge and complicated legal arrangements of various wills.
The reader of this genre of British mystery is usually more intrigued by the villagers' manners than by their murderous morals. One reads more for the subtle humor associated with E.F. Benson or even Jane Austen than for brilliant criminal sleuthing. For example, note this book's opening gambit: "Professional people are getting dreadfully lax nowadays," Mrs. Dudley said, spreading honey onto a scone with a slightly tremulous hand. Do you know, Dr. Masefield came to see me the other day wearing a sports jacket!" Thus is the cozy ambience that appeals in this kind of murder novel. While this book succeeds admirably in its creation of that special small village milieu, readers may be able to figure out the murder plot well before the ending. Also, once the plot is, as they say, revealed, one has the feeling that the solution came a bit too abruptly.
Jere Real teaches film at
Lynchburg College and recently
completed a murder novel set
in New Orleans.
ACT OF BETRAYAL.
By Edna Buchanan. Hyperion. $21.95.
Edna Buchanan's background as a crime reporter gives her novels a gritty, realistic edge, and her love of the complex and flawed city of Miami gives her writing resonance. "Act of Betrayal," her latest Britt Montero crime novel, makes use of Britt's Cuban background, and the current situation with regard to Cuban-U.S. relations makes this aspect of the story even more relevant and revealing.
A car bomb kills a local TV reporter; a young blond boy disappears; and Cuban freedom fighters surface, searching for a diary supposedly kept by Britt's father before he was executed by Fidel Castro. The diary, smuggled out of Cuba by a rafter, is said to reveal a traitor who sold out to Castro, and several interested parties, including Britt, want to see it. These divergent stories all find their way to Britt's desk at the "Miami News." As she follows conflicting leads about the diary, she is also on the trail of what looks suspiciously like a serial killer. Just to make things more interesting, as Britt begins to put everything together, a massive hurricane hits Miami. Britt finds herself in danger from the storm as well as from a desperate killer.
Buchanan crafts a complex and compelling tale. She brings the harrowing storm, and its even more terrible aftermath, to life with vivid clarity. |- ANNA WENTWORTH
PRELUDE TO DEATH.
By Sharon Zukowski. Dutton. $20.95.
I confess that I had not read the previous three novels when I read this fourth book in Zukowski's series featuring detective Blaine Stewart. On the other hand, I am partial to women authors and female sleuths, so I anticipated the best. What a disappointment to find a work that neither draws engaging characters nor provides a convincing plot.
Unlike the more dimensioned protagonists in Linda Barnes's or Sara Peretsky's novels, Stewart seems to have only one emotion - anger. Viewing the world exclusively through the prism of indignation, she insults everyone she meets and fails even to show the detective's most vital quality, curiosity about other people and their motives. This may be an attempt to create a "hard boiled" heroine.
Perhaps Zukowski intended an implausible plot with kidnappings, drug dealers, anti-Castro Cuban revolutionaries, secret societies of ex-Yalies and CIA conspirators to compensate for characters the reader doesn't care about. |- MARY ATWELL
Anna Wentworth reviews theater for WVTF public radio and
movies for WDBJ-Channel 7.
Mary Atwell teaches criminal justice at Radford University.
LENGTH: Long : 190 linesby CNB