Book Review: The Alpine Menace

Reviewed By: Carol Schwaderer Dickinson - RAM

The Alpine Menace    
Mary Daheim
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Amateur Sleuth   Woman Main Character   Cozy
Series: Emma Lord # 13
Ballantine; $6.99; 293 pp

This book was sooooo much better than anything I'd read in the Bed and Breakfast series.

The drinking interruptions of the other series were cut to only 5 or 6 shared beers with suspects, 3 or 4 visits to bars, but they were replaced with at least a dozen meals in restaurants. As far as I could see the sole purpose of these many meals were to pass time until the next "event"; and for the two sleuths to ENDLESSLY rehash what they knew, didn't know etc. Daheim's characters seem to have no interests outside self-fulfillment and sleuthing.

They have no hobbies or even opinions about life other than how it affects their comfort, except for murders. Nearly all the non-repeat characters were flat rather than dimensional.

Not a single clue was in the story until less than 60 pages from the end. Then one clue was ever so obviously planted and conspicuously mentioned about 4 times in 4 pages. Then a dozen things happened in the next few minutes. Emma realizes all the implications and which suspect murdered which victim. But she only shares her knowledge about one of them with Vida. Otherwise the nail-biting conclusion wouldn't work.

Choices by the characters were totally illogical although the motive was interesting. It doesn't read like it was written by an author with more than a dozen mysteries under her belt. It reads like a first mystery. And yet it was soooooo much better than any of the B&B mysteries I'll probably read another one in the Alpine series.

Carol Schwaderer Dickinson - RAM

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Carol Schwaderer Dickinson - RAM