Customer Reviews

The Cold Light of Mourning (Superior Collection)

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

 

 

Delightful English mystery set in a small village in Wales. The characters are well developed and the storyline is intriguing. I thoroughly enjoyed it and would not hesitate to recommend it to any cozy mystery lover.

The publisher's blurb set the scene:

"The picturesque North West market town of Llanelen is shocked
when Meg Wynne Thompson, a self-made beauty who has turned out
to be something of an unpopular bride, goes missing on her
wedding day. The last person believed to have seen her is
manicurist Penny Brannigan, an ex-patriate Canadian . . . .
After seeing a photograph of Meg in a local newspaper, Penny
realizes that the well-groomed woman who presented herself at
her salon was an imposter."

The title appealed to me as did the fact that the
author won an award for this book. I expected more than I
got, promising but, . . . so four stars instead of five.

I found the prose slow and stilted. And I had hoped
to see Wales in wonderful historical detail through the eyes of
this author-journalist. I did not. However, I did learn that
Welsh Rose Gold, the rarest in the world, was discovered in
1854 and is used in the wedding bands of the British Royal
Family. (Large Print Edition. Page 152).

I liked some of the names of the local businesses,
such as the Red Dragon Hotel and the local pub, The Leek and
the Lilly. But, speaking of names, I found the constant use
of the victim's first and middle name annoying. "Meg Wynne"
rather than "Meg" tripped me up. Ruined the story's flow.
And I was confused by the name, "Reverend Evans" on one
page and "Reverend Thomas" on another. The man's name:
Thomas Evans.

For me, the author's character sketches saved the
book. I liked her villagers. So did she. The main ones
were: Penny, of course, who is a manicurist and an artist;
Evelyn Lloyd, former postmistress and present busy body; Morwyn
Lloyd, niece of Evelyn and news reporter; Victoria Hopkirk, the
house-mate of Penny and harpist; Reverend Thomas Evans and his
wife, Bronwyn; and, finally, a possible love interest for Penny,
Detective Chief Inspector,Gareth Davies, and his much younger
partner, Detective Sergeant Bethan Morgan.

Character sketches follow:

(1)Penny: "She had had a difficult, complicated childhood
in Nova Scotia, in and out of foster homes, and found affection
hard to give and harder to receive, although she certainly tried to
be kind and considerate in a genuine, sincere way. . . . Her boy
friends wondered vaguely why she always seemed to sell herself short,
and why she had apparently settled for so little. But her life was
what she had made it. {Pages 100-101}

(2)Gareth: "The Detective Chief Inspector was tall, in
his mid-fifties, with a handsome head of grey hair neatly but not
fussily trimmed. His face had a kindly, understanding look about
it, which made him seem approachable, congenial even, but prime
suspects in the past had learned the hard way that he was not the
collegial fellow he seemed." {Page 116}

(3)Bethan: "Detective Sergeant Bethan Morgan was
considerably younger and blessed with a head of dark curls and
a ready smile which gave her a fresh, uncomplicated look. She
was keen to get on in her career and radiated the kind of enthusiasm
that her superiors found both endearing and mildly alarming."
{Page 116)

(4)Victoria: "The two women smiled shyly at each other.
They were about the same age, but Victoria was slightly taller, with
a somewhat serious, anxious look about her. Her blond hair was
pulled back and held at the nape of her neck with a large black
bow that matched black leather court shoes that looked expensive
and well cared for. . . . 'Well,' said Penny, 'why don't you tell
me what you're really doing here.' 'That's easy,' said Victoria,
'I'm getting over a bad divorce. . . . I guess I'm a bit age-
sensitive because my husband left me for a younger woman, an
American he met on a flight to New York." {Pages 168, 238]

A second book in the series is: A BRUSH WITH DEATH.
It seems to me there are many story lines, more waiting to
be said, so I shall give Duncan a second chance. thank you.

The character aspect of this novel was not quite as well developed as I would have expected, especially from a novel which was a competition prize winner, but it was interesting enough for me to finish the book. I don't feel as if I really ever got to know Penny Brannigan except that she was originally from Nova Scotia in Canada and had just happened to settle in the Welsh village of Llanelen on a whim. She met Emma Teasdale who was pleasant to her one day, kind to her the next day and evidently used those meetings as reasoning to settle down there. I'm not really sure I understand that, even though it is stated that Penny and Emma became very close friends, because by the time the novel begins Penny is the owner of the only manicure shop in the town and her relationship with Emma all took place in the past. Everyone in town is excited about the big wedding taking place at the weekend and Penny will have her part to play by doing the manicures for the two bridesmaids and, on the day of the wedding, for the bride. The fact that the bride waited until the actual day of the wedding to get her manicure is the device which drives the entire plot. After the manicure is finished Penny closes up her shop and goes out to paint landscapes. It is the next day before she finds out the wedding never took place because the bride went missing.

This book didn't rise to the ranking of a 4 star book for me because I really did figure out who one of the guilty parties was without much trouble at all, and the second person was someone who was obvious once the author revealed the twist in the story. I did not understand the motive until the author revealed it. I didn't feel that there were enough suspects presented. Even though there were some other characters, they were so lightly touched upon that it would have been impossible for them to have been the guilty party. In future books Penny is probably going to need to change quite a bit in her life. Reading about changing appointment times and canceling appointments became rather mundane and repetitive stuff after the first few times of Penny re-scheduling clients so she could go off investigating.