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Beautiful Lie The Dead (2010)

by Barbara Fradkin(Favorite Author)

4.03 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

1926607082 (ISBN13: 9781926607085)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Napolean and Co

series

Inspector Green Mystery

review 1: This is such a comfortably Canadian story, especially if you know Ottawa at all, and it fitted the time I read it as snow storms were battering all of eastern Canada. I have not read any of the other Inspector Green stories but you're given enough background to be going on with but not so much as sometimes inundates you. I really liked the fact that the book starts with the Inspector's daughter seeing the missing woman but not saying anything because she wasn't completely sure and was it important enough - just the way any of us would and she kicks herself over it just the way any of us would. There are always at least two streams of action going on in a workplace: the requirements of the job, the open events, and the behind the scenes action, the thoughts, suspicions, env... morey, and resentments that have to do with interpersonal relationships and the desire (or not) to try for promotion. These two worlds are delineated well in this book, if you had been in the various offices there would not have been much to indicate that second stream but the awkwardness that hampers first stream action would have been sensed. The complex plot is a little eyebrow raising and I'm not completely satisfied with the ending, but it certainly is a lesson against hiding things.
review 2: Barbara Fradkin is a shamelessly local author, writing about Canadian scenes and stories and for that alone, I like her. Too often Canadian writing is hidden in other locations to appeal more to the American market, or written by new immigrants about the land they left. I don't understand it, when Canada is so interesting in its own right. That said, some of the local colour gets in the way of the story. I don't need to know the actual view from the window of a specific deli to get the picture...The Inspector Green stories are quite lovely in and of themselves. The Inspector is a thoughtful man in some ways, and enough detail about police functioning is included to make it clear Fradkin knows whereof she speaks. You feel you are in good hands and can relax into the story.This particular story includes the Canadian mandatory winter, with heaps of snow and such, and the muddled history of out of wedlock births in the not too distant past. I enjoyed it.For my money, though, Louise Penny's books provide more gristle and thoughtfulness. less

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