Peachy Reads

I picked up this book after I had heard several positive reviews, and then there was the added hook that the action takes place largely in Cleveland, Ohio (specifically Shaker Heights), a place near and dear to my heart.  The plot was intricate and tightly woven and the characters so multidimensional and believable that it was a pleasure to read from start to finish.   Plus it was fun to recognize touchstones of Cleveland life like Heinen’s, the 100 th Bomb Group Restaurant, and other landmarks. Mia and Pearl, mother and daughter, follow an itinerant lifestyle that suits Mia’s artistic pursuits.  They arrive in Shaker Heights, a well-established suburb of Cleveland, and become tenants of a duplex owned by the Richardson Family.  The lives of Pearl and the Richardson children, and soon Mia and the entire Richardson family, become intertwined to such an extent that in the end it all implodes rather catastrophically.  Suffice it to say, more than one s...

I grew up on Agatha Christie, and this was like a little return trip to the genteel English world of the simple village life of yesteryear with the vicar and his wife, the local nobleman in his treasure home, an erudite detective with a European accent and a sidekick, and a double (maybe triple) murder.  If it all sounds derivative, it’s meant to.  The Christie-like story is sandwiched within the more modern tale of its publishing, and the sudden and perplexing suicide of its author, or is it murder? The UK cover actually has a magpie on it!