Title: Death of an Avid Reader
Author: Frances Brody
No. of Pages: 360
Publisher:Jan 1st 2014 by Piatkus
Death of an Avid Reader, is book 6 in a series of books following the escapades of Kate Shackleton, who by now has a sterling reputation for courageous super sleuthing. In this story Her reputation has attracted the attention Lady Coulton, who is a lady of stature in the city of Leeds. The story kicks off when illustrious Lady Caulton asks Kate to trace her illegitimate daughter, born some 24 years earlier and adopted by a fishmonger and his wife, the sister of Lady Caulton’s former nanny. A chance meeting of an old friend and fellow Leeds library proprietor, Dr Potter, drags Kate off into another murder enquiry, just when she’s got her hands full with tracing the young woman for a dying Lady Caulton. It is an enjoyable very well rounded whodunit, not without amusement, scandle and of course a mystery to solve.
The plot itself although seemingly straight forward is intricate, hurtling off in different directions to keep the reader guessing the identity of the murder. In fact Kate solves other minor cases involving a ghost, an exorcism, a run-away monkey, and a lively parrot, and you’ll have an eccentric murder mystery set that keeps the reader more then guessing. Despite these being solved along the way, the solving this intricate web of Lies and deception that revolve around the eccentric murder is far from deciphered, Kate certainly has her work cut out for her in order to solve this Murder Mystery.
Now as you may have read in my review of Humber Boy B, I am not a big fan of traditional Whodunit’s, However I did enjoy this one more than most, I think it was the abundance of interesting characters as we are introduced to new characters all the way through the book, which you might find a little disconcerting, Nevertheless despite the abundance of characters, it didn’t spoil the reading and as soon as I knew who is who, it was very smooth, fluid read.
Altogether, it’s elegant, clever, witty book. The characters have brilliantly expressed the spirit of the age but were also, in some way, very modern. The plot was great and developed in a right pace, with many subplots but everything was clear and the writing style was flowing, thus making the reading easy and not the hard slog I expect when reading a whodunit, where I solved the murder half way through the book, this one actually kept me guessing until the end. So would I recommend this novel? yes, I suppose I would, however I would warm you that it’s a traditional whodunit, and not as thought provoking as other crime novels I have read in the past.
Until next time, read more books!
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