Reviewed By: Jeff Kreider - RAM
A Stillness in Bethlehem
Amazon US PB Amazon Canada PB
Jane Haddam
Class/Genre: Mystery Classic Ethnic Holiday Humorous
Series: Gregor Demarkian # 7
The seventh in a series of Gregor Demarkian holiday mysteries, A Stillness in Bethlehem by Jane Haddam is set in Bethlehem, Vermont. An annual Nativity play, sponsored by the town brings lots of tourists' dollars, but Trish Verek, a True Crime writer, is filing a suit to have it stopped on the grounds of separation of church and state. Just as she is about to do so, she is shot and killed. Shortly after, an eighty year old woman is shot and killed. Both, though suspicious, are initially thought to be hunting accidents (rifle shots from far away, different rifles for each victim, both killed on the edge of a wilderness). However, Gregor Demarkian, retired FBI and an amateur sleuth, is in town for the play is not so sure. Of course, if he were wrong, this really wouldn't be a mystery, would it? The nature of mysteries are really pretty simple. Somebody gets dead and somebody else figures out who; game over. The act and the solution, of course, have to be separated by about 200 pages or more, so what separates one mystery from another is what is done in between to keep you interested. There are a variety of ways to do that. There is, of course, the peeling of the onion; the unraveling of the mystery itself. There's the suspense of who's next. There are sub plots. Picturesque characterizations. Waxing philosophical. Jane employs all these and quite enjoyably.
It is not a hard-boiled murder mystery, but I wouldn't exactly call it a "cozy" either. To extend the egg metaphor a bit, I might call it "over medium". There isn't harsh language. The murders aren't gory and clinical details are only as necessary but antiseptically distant. What sex there was was only alluded to; this guy likes it rough and beats his wife and she seems to accept that, that guy is living with this woman, these two women are living together. So why isn't it a cozy? I don't know. To me, a cozy borders on a fairytale or fantasy, but Jane's work has a fresh air realism about it that brings it a step up from that. I liked it.
Jeff Kreider - RAM
Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Jeff Kreider - RAM
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