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Title: Bitter Sweets: A Savannah Reid Mystery by G. A. McKevett ISBN: 1-57566-693-6 Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corporation Pub. Date: 01 May, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.71 (7 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: I really like this series...
Comment: While I was up half the night with what seems to be the flu, I was pretty much able to start and finish Bitter Sweets by G. A. McKevett. This is the second book in the series, and you end up getting a fair amount of character development devoted to Savannah's grandmother. She shows up on Savannah's doorstep, wanting to experience a trip to Disneyland. Unfortunately, Savannah has a few other things going on.
Savannah's new detective agency gets its first case, and it's a request to track down a missing sister. They take all the necessary precautions to make sure the person requesting the trace is actually her brother, and they start the hunt. When they finally find her, they learn she's in hiding from her ex-husband who has threatened to kill her and their daughter. Before Savannah can arrange a meeting between brother and sister, she finds out she's been duped. The sister is murdered, the child is kidnapped, and Savannah now has to track down the killer. To make it worse, the chief of police is seriously considering charging her with being an accessory to the murder.
A nice number of twists and turns, and some ethical questions at the end where you have to figure out whether justice would be served by doing the "right" thing.
Rating: 2
Summary: Bitter Disappointment in Bitter Sweets
Comment: I'm not sure if my disappointment is in the quality of the book, or in the fact that I was misled by the cheery cover & title.
British mysteries are quite a different genre from American hard-boiled detective stories: they are cosy and comforting, almost a "Tea and Murder" party. Yes, there has been a murder: but brutual details are not stressed, so as not to disturb the reader's equanimity. Instead, we are given a delicious smorgasbord: piquant characters, a peek into a society or life-style very different from our own, a tantalizing puzzle to solve through logic and the famous "little grey cells". Although McKevett is an American author, the cover, the title, and the blurb on the back cover led me to believe that "Bitter Sweets" belong to this genre.
We are indeed offered piquant characters, although no character development. But the violence of the murder jolted me out of the cosy Tea and Murder mode. Even more distressing was the lack of a puzzle ... the murderer was easily identifiable. Why read a mystery when there is no mystery?
Rating: 3
Summary: Definitely not hardboiled
Comment: It starts off with a page-turning premise. Savannah is hired by a client to find his long-lost sister. She begins to help then finds that the sister is being stalked by an abusive murderous ex-husband and that he may be the supposed "brother." The woman is murdered and everything points to the ex-husband, whom Savannah may have helped, but then he is murdered in the same way.
Later on the plot crumbles and the mystery is resolved by introducing confessions and new witnesses (although I suppose that is what mostly happens when real murders are solved).
Savannah is a great character with a complex and ambiguous set of relationships. She is unmarried, past 40 and overweight. She is estranged from her mother and father and had to raise her siblings with the help of her grandmother. Her closest male friends are Dirk, whom she finds sexually repugnant and a gay male couple whom she finds sexually attractive. She is closely involved with her pretty female assistant.
There are patches of inspirational sickly sloppy sentimental stuff but they can be skipped or you might even like them. This is second in the series. Rather darker and better plotted (which is not saying much because McKevett is not a great plotter, at least as far as the main mystery is concerned) than the others.
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Title: Just Desserts (Savannah Reid Mystery Series) by G. A. McKevett ISBN: 0758200617 Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corporation Pub. Date: 01 January, 2001 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: Killer Calories (Savannah Reid Mysteries (Paperback)) by G. A. McKevett ISBN: 1575665212 Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp. Pub. Date: 01 February, 2000 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: Sugar and Spite: A Savannah Reid Mystery (Savannah Reid Mysteries (Paperback)) by G. A. McKevett ISBN: 1575666375 Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corporation Pub. Date: 01 January, 2001 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: Sour Grapes: A Savannah Reid Mystery (Savannah Reid Mysteries (Paperback)) by G. A. McKevett ISBN: 1575667266 Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corporation Pub. Date: 01 December, 2001 List Price(USD): $6.50 |
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Title: Peaches and Screams: A Savannah Reid Mystery (Savannah Reid Mysteries (Paperback)) by G. A. McKevett ISBN: 1575667274 Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corporation Pub. Date: 01 December, 2002 List Price(USD): $6.50 |
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