1996 detective fiction; eighth and apparently last of Cleeves's novels
of amateur private detectives George and Molly Palmer-Jones. George is
commissioned to look into a possible charity fraud, then whipped off
to Texas to assist an old birdwatching friend who's being accused of
murder.
The small marsh-bound town of High Island, on the Texas coast, is
the setting for most of this book, and it's a curiously odd fit for
Cleeves' mannered style of writing; the hotel may be filled with
British birders, but she still tries and mostly fails to give an
American feel to the story.
As often in Cleeves' books, the answers lie in the past, with three
former university friends getting back together twenty years after
their months-long summer birding trip, and one of them soon to be
murdered. Alas, though, it's mostly from George's viewpoint, with
Molly stuck at home looking into the background of the victim, and
quietly solving the case while George goes about getting nowhere.
Alas, as usually with Cleeves, everyone here is at least mildly broken
and unpleasant, and one can't really feel much sympathy for the
victim, or care when the murderer is caught in a climactic scene that
doesn't fit well with the rest of the narrative.
It's all right, I suppose, and the writing is excellent as ever, but
this one feels like a misstep after the previous two volumes.
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