Customer Reviews

The Alpine Advocate

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you love light, escapist mysteries, with strong female protagonists, you will like the Alpine mystery series of Mary Daheim's. I do not have to read things in series, and I find Daheim carefully reconnects the reader to the on-going characters and situations no matter which letter of the alphabet you pick up to read. I do endorse starting with A, The Alpine Advocate, however, as it sets the true scene. And protagonist Emma Lord is a wonderfully independent woman, a journalist of the big city of Seattle, who has purchased the little town news tome of Alpine, fictional, but very real, and invested her life and welfare in it. As the outsider, she must adjust to the local controls, the old-timers already in place on her staff, and to the expectations of a town who sees her as NEW. Her Catholic faith, her love of the wrong, and very unavailable man, and her love for a son with growing pains, and her brother, the charitable priest, give her substance the reader can sympathize with.

There is so much fun in these works by Daheim, in repeating, quirky characters, in idyosyncrasies of nature, in a middle-aged, sexy woman, and her spunky approach to life. Once you get hooked on Emma Lord, you will want to read all the books, which I believe are up to Alpine Obituary. If you start, you will find Emma and her circle to be a set of old friends, suitable for any reader's entertainment. There is red hot sex, suspense, laughter, and unexpected heartbreak. But this is great escapist reading. Fast, slick, and fun!

I just started reading Mary Daheim's Alpine Murder Mystery Series. I find that Emma Lord and Alpine are very intriguing and interesting, and I had a hard time putting the book down. I will definitely continue reading this whole series. If you like lite murder mysteries, then this is the series for you. Mary Daheim takes her characters to the level where you want to know more and more.

From the very first chapter I started to feel about Emma Lord and Vida Runkel as they were my personal friends. Small town mysteries always were my favorits because they tell about people more than about crime. Alpine is as much a character as detective Milo or terrible Rodger. The charm of this small town makes you want to visit this place or, at least, stop for a minute our endless run and look at the people and world around you.

Mary Daheim is a good writer. Her characters are interesting and her plots are each different. But that's sort of the problem. Some of her characters, like Judith's mom in the B&B series, are a little TOO interesting. I get awfully tired of Judith and her mom arguing. And some of the plots in that series are kind of off the wall. I mean, I like my mysteries to have some surprises in them, but too much is still too much. I was really unimpressed with the latest one I read.

That's why I was interested in exploring this series. And this one is more to my taste. There are some eccentrics, but mostly it's just small town life on a believable scale. Of course, like Judith, Emma Lord has her share of romantic problems and kid problems. But I enjoyed this one a lot more than the B&B ones.

I picked up The Alpine Advocate virtually at random while searching for a new mystery and was pleasantly surprised. Emma Lord and the snowy Washington village she lives in do remind one of the impeccable Jessica Fletcher and her Eastern roots. There is something reminiscent here about Twin Peaks, with the eccentric locals and their closets full of skeletons. The novel does have its flaws: Ms. Daheim spends a few too many pages establshing a relationship between Emma and her old flame Tom and I impatiently read through these passages waiting for more clues about the murders. Although I dare not reveal the ending, the conclusion is quite satisfying, and it turned out to be one of those mysteries in which I thought I had everything figured out but was pleasantly surprised. I look forward to reading more of Ms. Daheim's mysteries, and have already ordered the second novel in the series.

Emma Lord has always dreamed of running a newspaper, but the reality is a bit different than she had anticipated. The bills are rolling in and the money is rolling out in this small town in Washington where there isn't much happening which is newsworthy. Alpine is shocked when the son of a prominent family is murdered. Another murder follows and Emma is consumed with not only reporting the news, but in finding out who is causing it. There are plenty of people around who have a motive for the killing, even within the victim's family, but Emma doesn't want to jump to conclusions. Finally the murderer is revealed and Emma's life is in danger. This is a promising beginning for this "cozy" series.

Having finished reading a "so so" mystery series,(Can't say which series.)

I have now started on Mary Daheim's second series of books. Her B & B Series is my favorite of all mystery series. I love them and am really looking forward to the Alpine books.

The Alpine Advocate is ok. A slow start, but many series start out slow. It was good enough to have me starting the second book as soon as I had finished it.

Emma Lord, 40ish year old former Seattle reporter was shocked when her fiancee, from twenty years previous died without ever remember to change beneficiary on his insurance policy at Boeing. With a windfall of a half million dollars, Emma buys two things, The Alpine Advocate, a newspaper in the small town of Alpine at the foot of the Cascade Mountains and a green Jaguar.

Emma as been publishing for a year when Mark Doukas, grandson of rich, old Neeny Doukas is murdered at an old boarded up mine on his grandfather's property. Rumors were that he had found gold.

Suspicion falls on another grandson, college student Chris who had just arrived in Alpine after being banished to Hawaii with his late mother, who had enraged her father for marrying someone he didn't approve of.

Sheriff Milo Dodge is trying to investigate but Emma keeps popping up asking questions and tracking down clues with her employee Vida.

Chris is Emma's son, Adam's college roommate and she doesn't want to believe he could be a killer. Plus, everyone else is acting suspicious.

Phoebe, who has been old Neeny's mistress for years. Mark's father Simon, who's having an affair. Marks' brother-in-law, Kent who he had a big fight with the night of the murder. And almost anyone else. Mark was not liked by very many people in Alpine.

Will Emma solve the crime or will the murderer think she's getting to close and put an end to her?

What I like about this book is that I liked so many of the people Emma is wonderful and so is Vida, a sixtish grandmother, who knows everything and everyone in Alpine and is related to half of them.

I liked Emma's sort of, starting to be, maybe but probably not, romance with Milo Dodge, the sheriff. She goes out with him, doesn't really enjoy it, finds him a little dull, but is a little put out when he doesn't at least try to make any kind of pass at her.

This leads me to what I don't like about the book.

Emma has a son, Adam in college in Hawaii, he seems to have the IQ of a turnip. He was born out of wedlock, the result of an affair, Emma had with married, Tom Cavanaugh, a wealthy publisher.

Tom had married a wealthy woman and used her money to become even wealthier. When Emma and his wife both became pregnant at the same time, he chose to stay with the money instead of Emma and has not helped her at all in Adam's support.

1. Emma keeps saying they were in love. If they were so much in love, how come his wife ended up pregant at the same time she did. Wouldn't you at least expect a man who's supposidly madly in love with you not to be sleeping with another woman, even if she's his wife.

2. Tom never supported or acknowledged, Adam. Emma says she told him, she could take care of the baby herself and didn't need him. That doesn't justify him not being a man and stepping up to the plate.

When he shows up in this book, Emma is still crazy about him. Now he wants to get close to Adam and help him. Nice, after twenty years and his own kids are a mess and his wife is halfway to a nuthouse.

Problem number two is also a man - Ed Bronsky, her advertising salesman at the newspaper. Ed spends most of his time trying to talk people out of taking ads, to take smaller ads, not to use pictures, in other words, try to make as little money for the paper as possible.

A newspaper can live or die on it's advertisement. Emma says she can't fire Ed because she's too soft hearted. There's a fine line between soft-hearted and soft-headed and she has definitely crossed over in this case. I know he's used for the humor value, but it just makes Emma look stupid, if she doesn't want to fire him, move him to another position, and hire a salesman, she could afford the extra person if she got someone who did his job.

Even with these problems, I enjoyed the book. I hope Emma realizes what a loser Tom is and he isn't too involved in future books. She should look a little closer at Milo, being a small town sheriff doesn't have to be a negative. Maybe he just needs some one to get him going.

I only gave the book 3 stars because I know how much better Mary Daheim can write and I'm sure the series is going to improve a lot more. The fact that I'm "excited" that I have 15 more of the books in this series to read, says a lot. The books are currently up to "P", Alpine Pursuit.

I'll be reviewing each as I finish them.

Meeting all the delightful residents of Alpine can be a challenge. Make a list as you go (that's what I did). You will be well rewarded as this series progresses; it provides a lot of chuckles, and you hardly care who-dun-it. As I write, I have read down to "Icon" and was only disappointed once!

In this introduction to her Emma Lord series, Daheim sets the stage, introduces us to her recurring characters, and of course provides a fun little murder mystery to solve.

Since this is a fanciful, cozy style murder mystery, the reader is prepared for the inevitable eccentric characters and the necessity to sustain disbelief in the interest of having an enjoyable story experience. Still, some of the characters' quirks and some of the coincidences are sufficiently over the top to warrant mentioning here.

For example, the main character, Emma Lord, hit the jackpot when her former boyfriend died, leaving her a quite substantial insurance windfall. This explains her ability to move to a quaint and super-quirky small town, buy its only newspaper, and set herself up as its editor. I can accept this as a valid plot device intended to set the stage and move the story along. However, nothing really explains her ambivalence to an advertising manager of stellar incompetence who came with the purchase of the newspaper, and who actively works to sabotage the paper's profitability. Equally incompetent is her junior reporter, who is portrayed as a likable but harebrained bimbo who can't spell and forgets to remove her camera's lens cap when taking photos in the field. Small town or not, no editor puts up with that for any length of time.

But, "quirkiness" seems to be the watchword, as is further illustrated by some of the characters' outlandish nicknames ("Eeny" and "Neeny") and weird personal idiosyncrasies (like the sidekick's bizarre propensity to rub the daylights out of her eyes whenever she becomes upset, which happens at the drop of the hat).

A particularly hard-to-swallow coincidence is the friendship between the main character's son, Adam, and the lynchpin character whose arrival in town is the catalyst that dredges up ghosts of the past and sets the rest of the story in motion. (They met in Hawaii after Adam moved there for college, and he arranges for his mother to pick him up at the airport). Really, what are the odds?

Still, let none of this serve to dissuade you from reading this book. Whatever this book's shortcomings, they are minor in the overall scheme of things. For all their foibles, the characters turn out to be likable (or detestable, in the case of the bad guys); the setting is unique and compelling; and most importantly, the puzzle portion of this mystery evidences a nimble use of time, motive and unexpected story twists that will delight the reader.

All told, The Alpine Advocate is a solid murder mystery that will appeal to those who enjoy quirky murder cozies. It's not bad at all for the first of a series.

The book " Alpine Advocate " A Mystery, came on time 3 to 10 days in good shape.. Thankyou. L. Dean