First Chapter Review: The Norfolk Mystery by Ian Sansom

I've gotten caught behind the eight ball this month and haven't had time to fully read this book. So, I am opting to share my thoughts on the first chapter today, with a full review to follow. I received a digital copy of this book through Partners in Crime Virtual Book Tours.

BLURB:  Love Miss Marple? Adore Holmes and Watson? Professor Morley's guide to Norfolk is a story of bygone England: quaint villages, eccentric locals—and murder …

It is 1937, and disillusioned Spanish Civil War veteran Stephen Sefton is broke. So when he sees a mysterious advertisement for a job where "intelligence is essential," he eagerly applies.

Thus begins Sefton's association with Professor Swanton Morley, an omnivorous intellect. Morley's latest project is a history of traditional England, with a guide to every county.

They start in Norfolk, but when the vicar of Blakeney is found hanging from his church's bell rope, Morley and Sefton find themselves drawn into a rather more fiendish plot. Did the reverend really take his own life, or is there something darker afoot?

A must-read for fans of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, and Charles Todd, this novel includes plenty of murder, mystery, and mayhem to confound.

COVER: The cover attracted me to the book in the first place. Then when I read the synopsis, I knew I wanted to read it. The color scheme of this cover, the quaint setting, and the flash of a red car all make this a winning cover in my book.

FIRST CHAPTER: The reader meets narrator, Stephen Sefton, who sets the stage for the story he is about to tell and what brought him to meet Professor Swanton Morley.

KEEP READING: While I don't mind a steady paced mystery or a slowly developing one, the  first chapter of The Norfolk Mystery by Ian Sansom is all backstory, setting the stage so the reader gets to know Sefton better. It's not my favorite way to start a book. One can't deny Sefton is an interesting narrator; and perhaps as the story moves along and Sefton and Professor Morley are deep into the mystery, all the backstory will turn out necessary. Right now, however, I'm considering how far away I am from getting into the thick of things.

I've continued with The Norfolk Mystery out of curiosity. Right now I'm close to the end of Chapter Four. Each chapter has revealed just a tiny bit more of the prequel to the mystery: Sefton's interview with Morley, which leads to their working together, the popularity of Morley who is also known as The People's Professor, and Sefton's journey to meet up with Morley in Holt to start his new job. Just like I found in A Place to Die by Dorothy James, the author spends a good deal of time shaping his characters and allowing the readers to get to know them well. That's a plus for character-driven readers such as myself. I'm just hoping the death of the vicar comes along soon so that the mystery gets the attention for a while. I think once that happens, I'll be turning the pages quickly.

Book Details:
Genre: Mystery/Detective
Published by: Witness Impulse
Publication Date: 11/12/2013
Number of Pages: 212
ISBN: 9780062320803

Purchase from Amazon of Barnes and Noble.

I received a digital version of this novel from the author through Partners in Crime Virtual Book Tours. This review contains my honest opinion, which I have not been compensated for in any way.

Book Review: A Place to Die by Dorothy James

A uniquely set literary mystery awaits you in A Place to Die by Dorothy James.

Eleanor and Franz Fabian travel from New York to the Vienna Woods to spend time with Franz's mother at the retirement home. While visiting on Boxing Day, they hear of the tragic death of Herr Hans Graf, a popular resident of Haus im Wald. They soon find themselves thrust into the middle of a homicide investigation.

Inspector Georg Büchner discovers surprising connections between Herr Graf and many of the residents and staff of Haus im Wald, and reunites with a former comrade who has surprisingly turned to a religious order. Are his past and the murder related?

When I was first asked to review A Place to Die, I was immediately drawn to its unique setting. James immerses the reader in details that make you feel like you are traveling right along with Büchner as he works to solve the crime.

This is not your typical mystery novel. It's literary in nature, so the story develops more slowly, each chapter is opened with an introduction, and the pace is much more leisurely than one would expect from a murder mystery. One is rewarded, however, with getting to know the characters well. There are several, many of them quirky, which made the story even more interesting.

A Place to Die is titled as "An Inspector Georg Büchner Mystery," but since Büchner shares so much of the spotlight with the Fabians it didn't feel that way. Eleanor plays amateur sleuth throughout the book. It seems like James combined elements of a detective novel with that of a cozy mystery. The story unfolds through the points of view of Büchner and the Fabians, which allowed for more information to be shared than if the author had relied on Büchner's sole point of view, but it's like Eleanor takes over. Now, she's crucial to the plot:  not only is she the daughter-in-law of one of the residents--which is why she is at Haus im Wald in the first place--but she reconnects with one of her friends who is also a resident. I felt her role as amateur sleuth, however, was distracting to the reader, and shifted the focus away from Büchner.

For the most part I was satisfied with how the story concluded, but there were a couple of things left unresolved. Perhaps the reader is supposed to draw her own conclusions based upon what was or wasn't revealed, but in my opinion there shouldn't be any questions after you turn the last page.

If you're into literary stories and enjoy mysteries, you might want to give this one a try. It has received several 5-star reviews on Amazon.

Title:  A Place to Die-An Inspector Georg Büchner Mystery
Author: Dorothy James
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation

Hardcover
Price: $34.99
ISBN: 9781450082709
Pages: 436
Release: April 21, 2010
Paperback
Price: $23.99
ISBN: 9781450082693
Pages: 436
Release: April 21, 2010

Amazon paperback buy link

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1450082696/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=tributebooks-20

Barnes&Noble.com paperback buy link

http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/click?id=dcSBhG3Rj8w&offerid=239662.9781450082693&type=2&subid=0

Kindle buy link - $3.03

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003WEA1BY/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=tributebooks-20

Nook buy link - $7.99

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/place-to-die-dorothy-james/1100371929?ean=9781450082716&itm=2&usri=a%252bplace%252bto%252bdie

iBookstore buy link - $9.99

http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/a-place-to-die/id424849936?mt=11&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

Dorothy James was born in Wales and grew up in the South Wales Valleys. Writer, editor, and translator, she has published short stories as well as books and articles on German and Austrian literature. She has taught at universities in the U.S., England, and Germany, makes her home now in Brooklyn and often spends time in Vienna and Berlin.


She wrote A Place to Die in her attic apartment on the edge of the Vienna Woods. She has travelled far from Wales, but has not lost the Welsh love of playing with language; she writes poems for pleasure as does Chief Inspector Büchner, the whimsical Viennese detective who unravels the first mystery in this new series of novels.

Dorothy James' web site:


http://www.viennamysteries.com/

Dorothy James' blog:

http://www.myplaceformystery.com/

A Place to Die Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Vienna-Mysteries/114871195254205?sk=wall

Dorothy James' Twitter:

http://twitter.com/valleyvoice

Tribute Books Blog Tours Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tribute-Books-Blog-Tours/242431245775186

A Place to Die blog tour site:

http://aplacetodieblogtour.blogspot.com/

I received a free e-copy of this book from the author's publicist in exchange for my honest opinions. I received no monetary compensation for my review.

This is the eighth book I've read for the following challenge:

This is the fifth book I've read for the following challenge:

This is the second book I've read for the following challenge:

This is the first book I've read for the following challenge:

Guest Blogger: Sheila Dalton, Author of The Girl in the Box

Caitlin Shaughnessy, a Canadian journalist, discovers that Inez, a traumatized young Mayan woman originally from Guatemala, has killed Caitlin’s psychoanalyst partner, Dr. Jerry Simpson. Simpson brought the girl, who may be autistic, back to Canada as an act of mercy and to attempt to treat her obvious trauma. Cailin desperately needs to find out why this terrible incident occurred so she can find the strength to forgive and move on with her life.
Inez, whose sense of wonder and innocence touches all who meet her, becomes a focal point for many of the Canadians who encounter her. As Caitlin struggles to uncover the truth about Inez’s relationship with Jerry, Inez struggles to break free of the projections of others. Each must confront her own anger and despair. The doctors in the north have an iciness that matches their surroundings, a kind of clinical armour that Caitlin must penetrate if she is to reach Inez.

The Girl in the Box is a psychological drama of the highest order and a gripping tale of intrigue and passion.

What do Daniel Defoe and Robinson Crusoe have to do with me? by Sheila Dalton

Daniel Defoe wrote his first novel, Robinson Crusoe, when he was sixty, and went on to write seven more novels, that’s what.

I’m sixty-one (sixty-two by the time you read this), and I’ve just had my second literary novel published, a “whydunnit”, The Girl in the Box.

I’ve had ten books for kids published, and a YA mystery, Trial by Fire, but I confess I thought I was getting a bit long in the tooth to have had only two adult novels published by such a late age.

But Defoe gives me hope. Not only was he sixty when Robinson Crusoe first saw the light of day in, but he also managed to invent the British novel in the process. His was the first literary work in the English language to use brand new, imaginary characters in a totally original story. Up till then, authors wrote about mythological figures only, and retold legends .

I can’t top that. But what I can tell you is it’s never too late to realize your dreams. I’m actually a relative youngster when it comes to novel publication. My friend, author Linda Hutsell-Manning, wrote her first novel for adults at the age of seventy, That Summer in Franklin. And the author of The Chamomile Lawn, Mary Wesley, published her first adult novel when she was seventy-one after her husband died, and went on to sell three million copies of her books, including 10 best-sellers in the last 20 years of her life!

An interesting wrinkle (if you’ll pardon the expression) to my own story is that The Girl in the Box was inspired by a trip I took to Guatemala, over thirty years ago. I went with a girlfriend for a protracted stay in that country during the decades-long Civil War there. As an aspiring writer in search of experience, I took a notebook with me. Thank goodness, as I really needed it to refresh my memory when I was finally able to process what I saw and heard and use it to create a novel of psychological suspense.

Sheila Dalton was born in Hillingdon, England and came to Canada when she was six. She is married with one son, and is” a willing cat slave to two furry friends”. She loves animals, singing, drawing, research, and travel, and has spent time in Central America, Europe and Morocco. She has written picture books, non-fiction for children, poetry and fiction for adults, and has worked as a freelance editor and writer, a librarian, an artist and crafter, and a barmaid in an English pub.


You can find out more about Sheila and her work at:
http://www.sheila-anne-dalton.com/
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/611332.Sheila_Dalton
https://twitter.com/#!/Sheladee
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Girl-in-the-Box-a-novel/166826139999771

Giveaways, Contests & Prizes!

In celebration of Sheila Dalton’s new release, she will be appearing at Pump Up Your Book’s 1st Annual Holiday Extravaganza Facebook Party on December 16. More than 50 books, gifts and cash awards will be given away including a print copy of The Girl in the Box! Visit the official party page here!