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A review by karieh13
Stranger in the Room by Amanda Kyle Williams
3.0
I’ve mostly moved away from reading mysteries/thrillers…unless 1) they are of the Jo Nesbo/Stieg Larsson variety or 2) it’s summertime. “Stranger in the Room” ended up on my reading list because of reason #2 – and I ended up liking it.
The first third or so was sort of “more of the same” when it comes to mysteries featuring former cop/FBI/CIA – turned PI. Keye Street is a recovering alcoholic, working on keeping her life and business together. I wasn’t totally involved in the plot – but did admire some of the descriptions of the South/Southern living.
“I’d been treated to this kind of suspicions from animals all my life, thanks to my mother’s attractions to wild things. But her love of nature and the desire to rescue the things it abandoned was, to her children, a glorious excursion into a heart she could not always freely share. My brother and I grew up with dew-covered grass slapping our ankles as we trailed behind our mother on early-morning treks through the rolling acreage behind the Methodist Children’s Home just a few blocks from our house. We followed her down the hill to the pond, where a pair of blue herons became so still at our arrival that we mistook them for driftwood at the water’s edge. But we always looked for them. Blue herons never fall out of love, Mother had told us. We tossed bread crumbs to the ducks and geese, and watched the fog light up out of the reeds, then burn off the lake in the early-morning sun. Jimmy and I know the songs of mockingbirds and the sudden stillness of a meadow at the shrill warning of a red-tailed hawk.”
At moments like these, what could be an average mystery, raises up to the level of a well written novel.
The latter part of the book was more interesting, as I settled into the writing and realized that Keye was not the hard-boiled, train wreck of a detective that is the star of most mysteries. There was something compelling about her, and the fact that she was able to maintain a healthy relationship with another detective, that kept me reading and at the end, put the book down with a sense of some well-spent summer reading time.
The first third or so was sort of “more of the same” when it comes to mysteries featuring former cop/FBI/CIA – turned PI. Keye Street is a recovering alcoholic, working on keeping her life and business together. I wasn’t totally involved in the plot – but did admire some of the descriptions of the South/Southern living.
“I’d been treated to this kind of suspicions from animals all my life, thanks to my mother’s attractions to wild things. But her love of nature and the desire to rescue the things it abandoned was, to her children, a glorious excursion into a heart she could not always freely share. My brother and I grew up with dew-covered grass slapping our ankles as we trailed behind our mother on early-morning treks through the rolling acreage behind the Methodist Children’s Home just a few blocks from our house. We followed her down the hill to the pond, where a pair of blue herons became so still at our arrival that we mistook them for driftwood at the water’s edge. But we always looked for them. Blue herons never fall out of love, Mother had told us. We tossed bread crumbs to the ducks and geese, and watched the fog light up out of the reeds, then burn off the lake in the early-morning sun. Jimmy and I know the songs of mockingbirds and the sudden stillness of a meadow at the shrill warning of a red-tailed hawk.”
At moments like these, what could be an average mystery, raises up to the level of a well written novel.
The latter part of the book was more interesting, as I settled into the writing and realized that Keye was not the hard-boiled, train wreck of a detective that is the star of most mysteries. There was something compelling about her, and the fact that she was able to maintain a healthy relationship with another detective, that kept me reading and at the end, put the book down with a sense of some well-spent summer reading time.