Customer Reviews

The Alpine Obituary

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

 

 

In an always powerful series, I think the "Alpine Obituary" is quite possibly Mary Daheim's most complex novel to date. She's incorporated a number of historical flashbacks into her text which worked extremely well for me and added both depth and dimension to her here-and-now plotline. When the book begins, the dreary, dog days of August seem to have extended into September, and Emma Lord, Editor-Publisher of the Advocate, is feeling overwhelmed by the frustration of having to scrape up enough 'new' news to fill her editions and stay even with her arch-rival and competitor, radio station KSKY owner, Spencer Fleetwood. Adding to her emotional malaise is the fact that she is still mourning the tragic death of her long-time lover, Tom Cavanaugh, and worrying about their son Adam, who has just accepted his first Parrish assignment in the wilds of the Alaskan outback. Preoccupied with past horrors and her own miseries, she finds it hard to work up either outrage or amusement when an oddball obituary for recently-deceased Alpine resident Jack Froland floats across her desk, and she is not at all receptive when Marsha Foster-Klein...the local judge who sent Tom's killer to prison...asks her to try and find out who's behind an anonymous letter with an enigmatic photo attached that threatens to expose Marsha's 'dark secret' unless she immediately withdraws her candidacy for a plum appointment to the Court of Appeals. However, because the photograph piques her interest and Marsha is willing to let her involve her old friend, the Advocate's indefatigable super-snoop, House & Home editor Vida Runkel in her sleuthing, Emma finally agrees to look into the matter. Drawing on Vida's encyclopedic knowledge of the community's history, they not only ferret out the blackmailer, but uncover some sad and startling connections between the Foster-Klein and Froland families...extending as far back as pre-WWI Alpine...that become all the more disturbing once the present intrudes itself into their investigation in the form of Widow Froland crying murder and a flash fire in a nearby forest that turns up a corpse together with evidence of arson. Somewhere in all this mass of conflicting data, Emma reasons, there must be a common link. Finding it takes her from no news to almost more news than she and Vida can handle as the action intensifies to its cliff-hanger conclusion when Emma makes a last, devastating discovery that provides an amazing answer to everyone's questions and finally allows the dead past to RIP.

One of the things that always delights me whenever I begin a new Alpine mystery is just how easy...and how pleasurable...it is to re-immerse myself in Emma Lord's world. Mary Daheim has such a marvelous flair for making her on-going characters so immediately accessible and appealing that even if you haven't read any of her other books, it still feels as if you are coming home. However, I thought one of the especially outstanding features of Emma's latest adventure was the new light that it shed on so many old, familiar faces. There were also some marvelous, almost O'Henry-like twists to this particular plot that heightened my overall enjoyment of the novel and made me extremely eager to find out what will happen next in Emma's life. Maybe we could follow her to Rome on an Alpine Pilgrimage?

As always Mary Daheim's newest Alpine book is very enjoyable. I read it more for the exposure to the characters I have grown to really care about then for the mystery. This one was just as good as the others she has written. Give it a chance and just read for the pure enjoyment of visiting the town of Alpine.

It's been a year since Tom Cavanaugh was murdered, and died in Emma's arms.

Emma Lord, owner and editor of the Alpine Advocate is not doing so well. She and Tom had an affair which produced her son Adam and she then waited almost 30 years for him to marry her. Now she feels as if her life is over and nothing interests her.

Her priest brother, Ben whose parish is in Tuba City, Arizona, invites her to go to Italy with him where he has a conference, but she doesn't really want to go anywhere.

And she's worried about her son, Adam, who's a newly ordained priest and his parish is in Northern Alaska, where he has to worry about dying of cold or polar bears.

Judge Marsha Foster-Klein, who was the judge at the trial of Tom's killer, asks a favor of Emma, she's got a threatening letter and would like Emma to investigate it.

At first Emma doesn't want to do it, but Vida finally convinces her to do it. The letter claims the Judge will never get her appointment because of things that had happened in the past, and included was an old photograph showing a railroad trestle with a rope hanging from it. The photo is probably 90 years old and none of them know what it means.

Then at the funeral of Jack Froland, Miles Dodge, the sheriff drives up and stops the burial. There are suspicions that Jack, a man in his 80's who was dying of cancer, may have been murdered.

And if that wasn't enought, a forest fire starts and after it's over, a dead body is found.

How these three storylines are intertwined, along with a fourth storyline, which takes place in 1916-1917, showing ancestors of many of the people involved in the modern story and explains what the photograph means, is a fascinating mystery which Emma finds difficult to solve.

Highligts:

Jack Froland funeral announcement which says "Come See Jack In The Box."

Milo asking Emma after a home cooked meal if it would help her if they went to bed together?

The fact that Milo is so obviously in love with her and seems to be taking her role in the unrequited love department.

The character's in this series are so real, that you just ache for them.

Spencer Fleetwood - owner of the new radio station in town, who keeps scooping Emma on all the stories.

Lowlights:

Tom Cavanaugh - I never liked this character. (See my review of the early books in this series) but I wanted Emma to dump him, not be devestated by having him die.

Where is everybody? You barely see Ginny Burmeister the office manager, Leo Walsh, the Ad Manager. The new reporter Scott Chamoud is more involved but Emma's old reporter Carla, who was a great character is barely mentioned. Only Vida is prominant in the story and she is beginning to be a little overwhelming and turning somewhat unlikeable.

I don't have the next book in the series yet, but ordered it the other day and can hardly wait for it to get here. I've been on vacation this week and have read more than half of this series in the last week. It was almost impossible to stop reading these books, once I started.

I loved this book (as I have loved the rest of the series) The characters are well drawn and believable, the mysteries are well plotted and after you've read a few of the books you start to feel as if you know these people. Great writing, good storyline. I recommend this book, and series, to everyone who enjoys a good mystery

As I have stated before, I do like this Mary Daheim series much better than the Bed and Breakfast series. The characters in this one are much more believable and the situations much more real-to-life. This episode revolves around a local judge getting a poison pen letter threatening her with exposure of a dark secret, about which she hasn't a clue. Ms. Daheim interweaves the current mystery with snippets from the past involving ancestors of the current Alpine residents, particularly those about which the story includes. She does a credible job with tying it all together and there were several aspects of this particular story I liked: Ed Bronsky, a character I do not care about, appears only in one scene; the story involves mostly Emma, Vida, and Milo; Emma is getting over the death of Tom. I would recommend this series to any mystery lover.

It is always a pleasure to return to Alpine..I hope the next installment comes out soon. I only wish that Ms. Daheim's Bed and Breakfast series was as well written!

I have enjoyed all of these books, but this one was possibly the worst book I have ever read. There was no reason for this book, a total waste.

After writing volumes "A" through "O" of the Alpine series, Mary Daheim is stretching the story lines a bit thinly. In this entry Emma is still depressed over the death of her lover in the previous book. A local judge receives threatening letters which she asks Emma to investigate, while one of the judge's distant relatives is killed. Emma feels that the two cases are related and she begins the investigation with the help of her friend Vida and Sheriff Milo. This series may make it all the way to "Z", but it will be a stretch.