Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by pleforge
Trouble in Transylvania by Barbara Wilson
This is less a mystery than a travelogue, although a very interesting one, peppered with feminist politics, history, and economics and salted with a mystery that blends all of these things together. It’s not a great book, but it is fairly delightful.
Cassandra Reilly is a world traveler who decides to spend some time with her friend Jack in Hungary. Somehow, she gets roped into helping some travelers who get embroiled in a suspicious death in the nearby Romanian province of Transylvania. Said travelers are as entertaining a bunch as you are likely to find. An elderly woman taking a cure at a health spa, her 19-year-old lesbian granddaughter (who takes a shine first to Cassandra, then to her friend Jack) and a family named Snapp who are searching for the birth mother of a four-year-old girl they adopted as a baby.
But although all the characters are interesting (which is very rare in itself) and the mystery mildly interesting, it is the author’s care in describing the history of the area that gives the book its punch. Without dwelling overlong on the Dracula theme, it gives the history of Romania and Hungary from both perspectives. And Transylvania has ties to both, it being part of Romania but with a mostly Hungarian population. In addition, Jack has studied the goddesses of Old Europe and is a fountain of information on this prehistorical theme that owes much to the work of Marija Gimbutas.
All in all, the characters (except for the murdered one, of course) have a good time and so does the reader. Well written and well researched without being outstanding, give this one just above an average number of stars.
Note: This review is included in my book The Art of the Lesbian Mystery Novel, along with information on over 930 other lesbian mysteries by over 310 authors.
Cassandra Reilly is a world traveler who decides to spend some time with her friend Jack in Hungary. Somehow, she gets roped into helping some travelers who get embroiled in a suspicious death in the nearby Romanian province of Transylvania. Said travelers are as entertaining a bunch as you are likely to find. An elderly woman taking a cure at a health spa, her 19-year-old lesbian granddaughter (who takes a shine first to Cassandra, then to her friend Jack) and a family named Snapp who are searching for the birth mother of a four-year-old girl they adopted as a baby.
But although all the characters are interesting (which is very rare in itself) and the mystery mildly interesting, it is the author’s care in describing the history of the area that gives the book its punch. Without dwelling overlong on the Dracula theme, it gives the history of Romania and Hungary from both perspectives. And Transylvania has ties to both, it being part of Romania but with a mostly Hungarian population. In addition, Jack has studied the goddesses of Old Europe and is a fountain of information on this prehistorical theme that owes much to the work of Marija Gimbutas.
All in all, the characters (except for the murdered one, of course) have a good time and so does the reader. Well written and well researched without being outstanding, give this one just above an average number of stars.
Note: This review is included in my book The Art of the Lesbian Mystery Novel, along with information on over 930 other lesbian mysteries by over 310 authors.