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Quiet Dell (2013)

by Jayne Anne Phillips(Favorite Author)

2.97 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

1439172536 (ISBN13: 9781439172537)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Scribner

review 1: based on a true story of mass murderer. journalist and photographer work (startlingly closely) with police to find a couple of useful clues as to identity and then whereabouts of the perpetrator, and then are there at trial to report to the nation. plus romances, between Emily and the bank manager (who might have been able to save a family if he had acted sooner) and Eric and a young lodger of the family who had suspicions too. nice addition of a waif and stray lad taken under their collective wing. fey moments when the young murdered daughter seems to be a floating presence, (reminded of The Lovely Bones). rather a mixed bag, but very readable.
review 2: Although narrator Tandy Cronyn does a good job with this, I think it might have been better read than hear... mored. The plot is complex, and while that often works well for me with audio, it didn't this time. That said, it's an intriguing story. Based on details of a true crime, a serial murderer who lured a woman from Park Ridge, IL, into marriage, then killed her and her children in West Virginia. The novel follows a Chicago Tribune reporter, fictional Emily Thornhill, and her investigation into murder and trial (for an earlier murder of a woman, for which there was better evidence.) What complicates the story are the dreams and inner lives of the victims, woven through the story. So there is Phillips' compelling lyrical prose mixed with a factual, journalistic style; well-researched, thoughtful, compelling story; chilling, haunting, disturbing and even sometimes romantic tone (details of the murders are not included, so it's not brutal); lovely character-centered novel with strong sense of time and place. less

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