Saturday, July 12, 2008

Fatal Cut by Christine Green

This is a very well written mystery novel and makes for very engrossing reading. Christine Greem does a very good job at depicting the various characters and their lives and miseries.

Denise Parks is a throughly unpleasant woman. She doesn't like men much and she definitely doesn't approve of her sister's latest boyfriend, Mike. In fact she seems bent on putting an end to that relationship and airs her disapproval at any given opportunity much to Janine and Mike's frustration and anger. Denise's one joy seem to be going to the salon for a beauty treatment, not only for the care but also because she loves eavesdropping on the gossip. She is then able to drop little barbed statments based on the gossip she has overheard to the person concerned, letting them know that she knows all their little foibles but passing it off as some mysterious power she has, rather than as gossip she overheard. Therefore it is no surprise to many when she is found murdered in the beauty salon. But which one of the staff or clients committed the crime? Definitely everyone has their own little secrets that they are determined to protect much to Chief Inspector Connor O'Neill and Detective Sergeant Fran Wilson's dismay. Connor and Fran find that delving into Denise's life, means stepping into a past that is horrorific and perhaps better left alone. And before this case is over, both Connor and Fran will discover more than they are comfortable with about a woman like Denise Parks...

What really made this novel was all the characters connected with the beauty salon. Christine Green gives us characters that are memorable for their strengths and weaknesses, and actually provides us with some rather nice resolutions for these characters by the novel's end. Quite often minor character/suspects are marginalised in a mystery novel, so it was refreshing to find these characters getting a little more attention than they are usually given.
This was definitely engrossing reading.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Welll....I never thought of me, or my name, as an unpleasant women, but listening to a little gossip is fine. Where else would you got to gossip, but a beauty salon. A little gossip could be quite helpful. Signed, An Unpleasant Woman, Denise Parks.