REVIEW: Evan's Gate (book) by Rhys Bowen

Evan's Gate is the eighth book in Rhys Bowen's Constable Evans Mysteries series. I bought my copy used.

Review:

Evan is in the process of trying to get approval to fix up an old shepherd's cottage for himself and his fiancee, Bronwen, when he gets a call about a missing little girl. Did the child wander off, or was she abducted by her father? While pursuing multiple possibilities, Evan stumbles across the body of another little girl, and possibly a further complication to his ongoing missing child case.

I first started this series many years ago and by all rights should have finished it by now. It's only ten books long, and I've generally enjoyed each book I've read. It's got a nice sense of place, and Evan is generally likeable. But for some reason I only dip my toes into this series once every few years, and I've been doing it all out of order. I've read the first, fifth, and tenth books. It's a bit of shame, since one of the appeals of this series is that Bowen actually allows Evan's life to change from one book to the next, instead of forcing him to wallow in an unending love triangle for all eternity (while I like M.C. Beaton's Hamish Macbeth books, the eternal love triangle is part of the reason why it's been years since I last read one of them).

The Twelve Clues of Christmas (audiobook) by Rhys Bowen, narrated by Katherine Kellgren

The Twelve Clues of Christmas is a historical cozy mystery.

Review:

I'm getting more of my review backlog out of the way, because, one way or another, I plan on starting the new year with a clean slate. I'd like to leave anything I haven't reviewed by then behind.

Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie (aka “Georgie”) doesn't want to spend Christmas with family members who don't really want her around, and she's been forbidden from going to visit her commoner grandfather and spending the time with him. When she spots an ad for a position as hostess at a party in a little village, she jumps at the chance for a more enjoyable Christmas. Everything seems to be going well, except Georgie keeps hearing about apparently random and accidental deaths. She can't shake the thought that there's something sinister behind it all.

Evans Above (e-book) by Rhys Bowen

Evans Above is a cozy mystery. I checked it out via Open Library.

Review:

According to my records, I've skipped around in this series. I previously read the fifth and tenth books in the series. With Evans Above, I'm finally getting around to reading the first.

Bowen's Constable Evans series takes place in a small village in Wales called Llanfair. Constable Evan Evans is a relatively new addition to the village, having left his original position in a bigger city. He prefers living a quieter life, even though the village squabbles and attempts to set him up with eligible ladies sometimes get on his nerves. However, just because Llanfair is quieter doesn't mean it's crime-free.

In this book, Evans finds himself dealing with a couple dead hikers. While Evans' boss thinks their deaths are just a tragic coincidence, Evans isn't so sure. Even after he learns that both men were in the Army, however, he still can't quite make things fit. Meanwhile, Evans' superiors are busy with a high-profile case involving child molestation and murder, and one of Llanfair's residents is convinced her neighbor is spying on her and trying to ruin her garden.

Post-vacation post

I now have my new kitten! She was a bit scared at first, but once I broke out the jingle ball toys she got over that. She's already got me Googling ways to keep cats from playing with electrical cords, but, other than that, we're getting along fine so far. Of course, she's only actually been with me for a few hours, but watching her attack jingle balls gives me good feelings. We even played something that sort of resembled fetch.

I figured that, in addition to kitten stuff, I'd also write about my vacation reading. With all the niece-watching I did, I ended up having plenty of time to read (and massive amounts of time for TV watching, which may have reawakened my addiction to House).

Here's the stuff I managed to finish:

• Evan Can Wait (book) by Rhys Bowen - I mentioned this author and her Constable Evans books as read-alikes for M.C. Beaton's Hamish Macbeth books, but I had never actually read any of Bowen's Constable Evans books. I decided to fix this, and it was a good decision. I can now say from personal experience that the Constable Evans books are definitely good read-alike suggestions for those who liked the Hamish Macbeth books. In this particular book, Evan Evans has the annoying task of watching out for a bunch of people filming a documentary about the recovery of a WWII plane. The most insufferable of the documentary people is murdered, and Evan must figure out who did it. The case ends up being tied to a bit of local history about some paintings that had been hidden in the slate mines during WWII.
• Evanly Bodies (book) by Rhys Bowen - I loved Evan Can Wait, so I figured I'd try another Constable Evans book. These two books, by the way, were the only Constable Evans books I could get hold of at the library right away, but it doesn't appear to matter much which book in the series you start with. Like Beaton's Hamish Macbeth books, all you end up missing out on is a little character history. In Evan Can Wait, Evan was stressing out about his girlfriend and whether she might want to go back to her ex-husband. He hoped to marry her but hadn't asked yet. In this book, the two of them are newly weds. Evan has to deal with what appears to be a serial killer who targets husbands, stressful changes at work, and a Pakistani family whose daughter runs away and may be in danger.
• Ready or Not (book) by Meg Cabot - This is the only YA novel I read during my vacation, and I almost didn't finish it. I got it because I remembered that Cabot is very highly regarded over at Forever Young Adult, but it didn't instantly grab me, so I almost quit after the first 20 pages or so. The end of my vacation swooped in, I only had three days left to read anything, and this was the shortest book in the pile of library books I hadn't read yet, so I decided to finish it - good decision. Samantha (aka Sam) has a lot to deal with in this book: she finds out her new life drawing class involves drawing naked people (in particular, a naked guy, her first naked guy ever); David, her boyfriend and the President's son, asks her to go to Camp David with him and his family, which she is sure means that he wants to have sex, something she's not sure she's ready for; and her conflict about sex and losing her virginity spills over into all sorts of other areas of her life. For those who are worrying that all this thinking about sex means that there's a graphic sex scene, rest assured that that's not the case. Reading about all of Sam's worries made me wish I could help talk her through them - she's an extremely likable character.
• Dream Gold: Knights in the Dark (manga, vol. 1) by Tasurou Nakanishi - In this volume, the main characters join a group in which each individual is dedicated to finding a mysterious treasure hidden somewhere in the city. While this one wasn't necessarily bad, it didn't grab me at all. I have no interest in reading any other volumes of the series. Something about it reminded me a little of GetBackers, only the characters in GetBackers are more interesting.
• Otomen (manga, vol. 1) by Aya Kanno - I liked Aya Kanno's Blank Slate and wanted to try this series. Happily, the library had volume 1. Unfortunately, I could find no other volumes on the shelves - I loved this volume, and definitely plan on reading more. The only issue I can see is that this could end up being a one-note series that gets stale quickly. In this volume, Asuka appears to be the proper manly ideal. What others don't know about him is that he secretly likes girlie things, like handicrafts, cooking, and cute animals. He falls in love with a clueless girl who likes macho stuff and meets a guy who starts off as his romantic rival and becomes something like a friend. What Asuka doesn't know is that this guy is actually a manga artist and author who's been basing his hit shojo series on Asuka's life. In case this description hasn't already made it obvious, this series is nothing like Kanno's Blank Slate. Kanno is a brave person to tackle such completely different tones.
• The Kindaichi Case Files: The Gentleman Thief (manga, I didn't write down which volume this is) story by Yozaburo Kanari, art by Fumiya Sato - I've liked other Kindaichi Case Files volumes I've read, although not enough to seek them out and buy them. A mysterious thief called the Gentleman Thief has been stealing works of art and altering their real-life subjects (for instance, stealing a painting of a tree and then clipping the tree to look like the thief's symbol). None of this is very sinister until the Gentleman Thief targets a particular artist who became famous after painting a portrait of his daughter as he imagined she would look like years later. Several paintings are stolen, several people are killed. This was a nice, interesting mystery - I had fun trying to figure out who the killer was. I like the art style, too.
• Millennium Snow (manga, vol. 1) by Bisco Hatori - A terminally ill girl meets a vampire who could save her life and make her live a thousand years just by drinking her blood. Unfortunately for her, he doesn't want to. If I remember right, this series is very brief, and I can see why. As a vampire romance (or werewolf romance, if you count the guy who shows up later in this volume), it's not very good. The supernatural stuff isn't very prominent, and the romance didn't prompt any fangirl feelings on my part.
• What Happens in London (book) by Julia Quinn - This one was a very good choice for a vacation read. It was fast-paced and fun, and the suspense bits didn't get very dark. When I picked it up, I had no idea that it involved characters first introduced in The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever, the only other book by Quinn I've read. I found this one to be much more enjoyable than that one - for one thing, the hero was much less of a jerk. This particular book features Miranda's friend Olivia, who has more suitors than she knows what to do with, and not a single suitor who cares to look past her pretty face and figure out what she's really like. The courtship through windows was wonderful, and I loved the proposal.

These are the books I didn't finish:

• In a Gilded Cage (book) by Rhys Bowen - I didn't dislike this book, but it didn't really grab me, either, and that just won't do for vacation reading. I much prefer Bowen's Evan Evans books.
• The Black Gryphon (book) by Mercedes Lackey - This was the very first book by Lackey that I ever read - I was a teenager on a gryphon kick. I've since read this many times. I took it with me to read on the plane and did not allow myself to read it at all once I got myself a stack of library books. That's pretty much the only reason I didn't finish it.

Her Royal Spyness (book) by Rhys Bowen

It's the 1930s and just about everyone's having money problems, including Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie (aka Georgie). When she overhears her brother and his wife discussing marrying her off to a cold fish of a man, Georgie decides to take a trip to London (Georgie lives in dreary Scotland). Of course, the family can't afford to send a maid with her, and Georgie can't afford to hire one while in London (her brother cut her allowance off ages ago), so she's left to fend for herself. The Queen asks her to spy on her son and his newest lady friend and hints that Georgie might be sent off to be a lady-in-waiting in the middle of nowhere. Georgie has to do what the Queen has asked and somehow figure out how to earn a living while at the same time avoiding any actions that might get her assigned to a life of boredom in the country.

Georgie tries a job at Harrod's - she doesn't even make it through a day. In the process of learning to take care of her own living quarters (her grandfather, who's a commoner and a former cop, tells her how to light a fireplace, and she figures out how to toast bread and clean things), Georgie has what she thinks is a brilliant idea - become a one-woman cleaning service. She'll change sheets, do a bit of scrubbing and dusting, and try to make sure that no one of her class finds out what she's resorting to for money.

While Georgie tries to figure out how to support herself, she meets a handsome minor royal, an Irishman who's also short on funds. He's interesting, fun, and attractive, but he's not suitable husband material - that doesn't stop Georgie's best friend from encouraging her to have a fling with him and finally cease being a virgin. Unfortunately, Georgie's life isn't just work and a handsome man. Her brother has come to London with bad news: apparently, their father gambled away the family estate, and now the winner has come to collect. When that man turns up dead in the family's London home, Georgie and especially her brother are suspects. Georgie has to figure out who killed him before whoever did it manages to kill her, all while doing some spying for the Queen and cleaning other people's houses.

The cover of this book makes me think "lively and fun" and that's exactly what this book is. I wasn't sure what to think of Georgie, at first - she's well-bred, which often translates to "annoying and stuck-up" in books and movies, and she complains about her circumstances but refuses any of the quickest solutions to her problems. I came to like her pretty quickly, however. Although I never really could understand why becoming a lady-in-waiting was such a bad fate, I enjoyed the ways she tried to solve her own problems. She didn't ask her grandfather to fix everything, especially after she realized that he was probably in more dire monetary straits than she. She lost the job at Harrod's through no real fault of her own, and her decision to become a cleaning lady was fairly logical, if naive (which fits her character, anyway).

Mystery fans should be warned that it takes a while for the mystery (the murdered man) to be introduced - the first part of the book establishes Georgie's character and her predicament and sets the story's fairly light and humorous tone. Once the murder does happen, it becomes extremely easy to forget all the other things Georgie is supposed to be doing - Bowen does try to remind the reader here and there, but in the end Georgie doesn't do much cleaning, and spying for the Queen just sort of swoops in and takes over the whole story.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and hope to read more of this series. The historical details, humor, and tiny bit of romance were tons of fun, and the book itself was a very quick read (I finished it in a day).

Read-alikes:

• Thank you, Jeeves (book) by P. G. Wodehouse - Bertie Wooster, a bumbling aristocrat, attempts to solve his personal problems on his own and is eventually forced to turn to his butler, Jeeves, for help. Those who'd like another light-hearted comedy in which the main character always ends up in unfortunate situations might want to try this. In addition, the time period during which this book and the others in the series take place (pre-WWII) is similar to Her Royal Spyness, which may appeal to some readers.
  
• To Say Nothing of the Dog (book) by Connie Willis - This hilarious, fast-paced, and strange sci-fi/faux-Victorian novel stars Ned Henry, a time-traveling historian suffering from time lag. In order get him away from Lady Schrapnell, who's running all the historians ragged trying to restore Coventry Cathedral, and give him time to recover, he's sent to Victorian England to take care of a supposedly simple assignment. Unfortunately, he's too time-lagged to understand what he's supposed to do. Those who'd like another historical comedy involving lots of well-bred characters and a bit of mystery might want to try this.
• Strangled Prose (book) by Joan Hess - Claire Malloy is trying to survive and raise a daughter, despite having no particular skills or abilities. She builds upon and uses her connections to and background in academia by opening a bookstore. In this first book in the series, Claire reluctantly holds a book signing for a friend, romance author Mildred Twiller (pen name, Azalea Twilight). Guests at the event are angry to hear themselves libeled in excerpts from the new book, and Mildred leaves in tears, only to be discovered later, strangled to death. Those who'd like another humorous mystery with a main female character who tries her best to be self-sufficient might want to try this.