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krisrid 's review for:
Real Murders
by Charlaine Harris
This is a "dark horse" of a book. It starts out as a rather ordinary story about "small town" people that becomes shockingly chilling and ultimately kind of terrifying.
Aurora Teagarden is a librarian in Lawrencetown, Georgia. She is also a member of the "Real Murders Society", a group of local folks who get together to discuss and dissect old murder cases.
On the night of a meeting when Aurora is to present a murder she's selected, someone decides to re-create that exact case, murdering another member of the Society in the VFW Hall where the meeting was about to begin!
As the bodies begin to pile up, all staged to recreate old murders using townspeople - and the particular old murders selected as the models, like the Lizzie Borden case for one, are especially bloody, vicious cases - Aurora realizes that the killer has to be a member of the club. But which one?!
The thing that makes this story so shocking is the fact that all the characters in the story are - or seem to be - your typical, ordinary small town folk. So the idea that one of them is a stone-cold, vicious killer is hard to fathom. It's that old: "He was so quiet, and seemed like such a nice man!" thing that people say when they discover that "nice young man" who lived next door turned out to be Jeffrey Dahmer.
The way the suspense builds is good. Everything seems utterly normal at first and in the beginning I was thinking the book was a bit boring. But then things start to change, and by the end you are racing through the pages to see how it all comes out, because the climax is worth the trip [which is all I'll say to avoid spoilers].
The book is short at only 175 pages, and a fast, easy read, but it is a surprisingly clever and unique story and if you are a murder mystery afficianado, you may enjoy this - I certainly did!
Aurora Teagarden is a librarian in Lawrencetown, Georgia. She is also a member of the "Real Murders Society", a group of local folks who get together to discuss and dissect old murder cases.
On the night of a meeting when Aurora is to present a murder she's selected, someone decides to re-create that exact case, murdering another member of the Society in the VFW Hall where the meeting was about to begin!
As the bodies begin to pile up, all staged to recreate old murders using townspeople - and the particular old murders selected as the models, like the Lizzie Borden case for one, are especially bloody, vicious cases - Aurora realizes that the killer has to be a member of the club. But which one?!
The thing that makes this story so shocking is the fact that all the characters in the story are - or seem to be - your typical, ordinary small town folk. So the idea that one of them is a stone-cold, vicious killer is hard to fathom. It's that old: "He was so quiet, and seemed like such a nice man!" thing that people say when they discover that "nice young man" who lived next door turned out to be Jeffrey Dahmer.
The way the suspense builds is good. Everything seems utterly normal at first and in the beginning I was thinking the book was a bit boring. But then things start to change, and by the end you are racing through the pages to see how it all comes out, because the climax is worth the trip [which is all I'll say to avoid spoilers].
The book is short at only 175 pages, and a fast, easy read, but it is a surprisingly clever and unique story and if you are a murder mystery afficianado, you may enjoy this - I certainly did!