Customer Reviews

Deadly Slipper

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1 star:		(4)

 

 

While backpacking, a young woman finds a remarkable grouping of orchids in the Dordogne Forest in southwestern France, the centerpiece a rare species never before located in this part of Europe. Excitedly she photographs the blooms, both in close-up and from a distance, establishing the location of the groupings. The forest is absolutely still, when the woman hears a footstep...

Nineteen years later, Mara Dunn arrives on Julian Wood's doorstep. Taciturn and withdrawn, Wood is a bachelor, botanical aficionado and orchidologist, one of many in this area of the French countryside. Armed with only the poorly-exposed film and a single print of a pigeonnier, a dovecote, Mara enlists Julian's aid in locating the orchids her sister, Bedie, photographed, a point of reference for Mara's search. A Canadian interior decorator, Mara has lived in the region for the last few years, drawn lately to the scene of Bedie's earlier disappearance. Proving knowledgeable about orchids, cultivating his own, as well as botanical projects from which he makes his living, Julian reluctantly agrees, tempted by a great find in the world of horticulture.

Mara and Julian map out a search area, scientifically approaching what seems an impossible task. As this odd couple progresses, Mara often senses someone watching her; once, isolated in a stand of trees, she hears footsteps and begins to run, but the steps easily keep pace, foiled only by the appearance of a stranger, Alain Sauvignac, whose parents own a nearby estate. Such unnerving incidents distract Mara, increasing her anxiety. The forest is the key, but every time she goes there, it is with a familiar unease.

The countryside is filled with eccentrics, not the least of which is Julian himself, who is both irritated and excited by Mara's intense personality. Mara wants to learn more about the old woman, La Binette, and her son, Vrac, who reside on a farm near the pigeonnier from Bedie's pictures, but is unable to rouse the interest of their neighbors, the Sauvignac's, although Mara is certain La Binette knows more than she is telling. Luckily, Alain, recently returned from his travels to visit his ageing parents, is sympathetic to Mara's plight, a welcome relief from Julian's obsession with the Lady's Slipper. But Mara trusts her intuition more than anyone she's met and remains the outsider, warned that the French will close ranks if any of their own is threatened. Suddenly the very people she feels safe with are the ones Mara suspects.

The novel is a horticulturalist's delight, finely detailed and researched, the quirky personalities of the French rendered fascinating by their petty territorial skirmishes for notoriety and the fame that attends discovering a new species of orchid. Beautifully mixing heroes and villains, the author leads the reader on an intricate chase of obscure characters and nefarious motives. Mara draws closer to the heart of Bedie's disappearance, as the infamous Lady's Slipper assumes a deadly presence, its rare beauty the key that unlocks a cunning murder. Luan Gaines/2005.

Beatrice "Bede" Dunn became fascinated with wild orchids when she got a summer job with the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. They sent her to the Bruce Peninsula to map orchids. She spent three months there, wandering around the woodlands, doing some serious hiking and camping-out. When she returned in the fall with fifty rolls of film, she had a new avocation - wild orchid hunting. Bede became passionate about "documenting the existence of a single flower or the breeding ground of a particular species." In 1984 she and her boyfriend, Scott, went on a hiking holiday in the Dordogne region of southwestern France. When it began to rain, the couple had an argument about whether to leave their camp and seek shelter elsewhere or to stay put. Bede was adamant about remaining and so she did - alone. When Scott returned two days later the tent and their things were still at the campsite, but Bede was gone, along with her camera, backpack, Michelin guide and a book on wildflowers and orchids. No one ever saw the young woman again. After a massive search and investigation, which garnered much publicity, no evidence of foul play was discovered, no body, no crime scene.

Mara Dunn, Bede's identical twin, has never resigned herself to the loss of her sister. She moved to the Dordogne after her divorce became final and went into the interior design business, all the while maintaining contact with the police. Nothing concrete, however, was found concerning the disappearance. During an antique hunting expedition in a near-by town, Mara discovered an old Canon camera in a pile of junk. She noticed it immediately, even though the case was mildewed and worn, because it was identical to the cameras her parents had given her and her sister for their high school graduation. She was sure it was the camera her sister had traveled to France with. Inside the case the initials "B. D." were written, and inside the camera was an undeveloped roll of film. Damaged by time and dampness, but still viable, thirty-four photographs were revealed upon development, of wild orchids and a dovecote, taken in what appears to be the local landscape. Mara is convinced the photographs document her sibling's final days.

Now, almost twenty years after Bede vanished, Mara, with the photographs in hand, makes yet another effort to find her sister, or her remains. Julian Wood is an English expatriate living in Dordogne and an expert on wild orchids. He is also the author of "Wildflowers of the Dordogne/ Fleurs sauvages de la Dordogne," and the man Mara wants to assist her. She asks him to help her retrace her sister's footsteps using the photographs as a guide. Julian is skeptical about turning up anything new on the missing woman. He doesn't really want to get involved and he doesn't care much for pushy, intense women. Besides, the police have copies of the photographs and don't seem very excited by them. When Julian views the final picture though, he becomes agitated and as motivated to begin a search as Mara, but for different reasons. The photo is of a Cypripedium - Sabot de Venus in French, sometimes called Lady's Slipper in English. And since this rare wild orchid does not grow in the Dordogne, or anywhere in Europe, he has his own mystery to unravel - if he decides to become involved with Mara and her investigation.

Not only is "Deadly Slipper" a good literary mystery, it is really a fun book to read. Filled with an exotic cast of characters - from the local bogeyman and his mother, who is even scarier than her son, to the bizarre Sauvignac family, (the local nobility), to Julian Wood's fanatic orchid hunting nemesis and competitor, and the regulars down at Chez Nous, the town's cafe/bar/gourmet restaurant, plus a French police inspector and his lads, these personages all enrich the narrative. The horticulture tidbits are fascinating, and I'm no gardener. The description of food, wine, the gorgeous countryside - c'est tres magnifique! The setting IS France! There is even some romancing going on in between gruesome discoveries. You cannot go wrong, especially if you're looking for something different in sleuthing.

JANA

It all happened so long ago, back in 1984, when Mara's twin sister Bedie went missing while on a back packing trip in the Dordogne region of France. Resolved once and for all to solve the mystery of her disappearance, Mara moves to the area to set herself up as an interior designer in order to be close to her sister's last known whereabouts.

Hope at solving the mystery finally arrives in the form of a camera with Bedie's initials inscribed on the front of it, and inside, an undeveloped roll of film of local plant life that is mostly of orchids. Convinced that the photos may hold a clue to her sister's whereabouts, Mara contacts Julian Wood, a reticent, and introverted Englishman who arrived in the area years ago.

Julian, who now makes his living doing landscaping for the wealthy locals, is a renowned orchid expert and has written an acclaimed book, "Wildflowers of the Dordogne/ Fleurs sauvage de la Dordogne." When processed, the roll of film reveals thirty-four photos, constituting a record of Bedie's blossomy trek around the Dordogne with her shots of the orchids and also one pigeonnier, or stone pigeon coop.

The photos rivet Julian, not so much because they may hold clues to Bedie's disappearance, but because the last shot Bedie ever took was a close-up of a Lady's Slipper, a rare orchid that has never been known to grow in the Dordogne. Enthused by the discovery, the two amateur sleuths come to a tentative arrangement - Mara will help Julian locate the Lady's Slipper, if Julian helps Mara retrace Bedie's last movements before she disappeared.

As the couple, using Bedie's old photos as a pictorial map, tries to piece together her final journey, parts of the puzzle begin to interlock, but the full picture remains incomplete, critical pieces missing here and there.

What does the old woman, La Binette, and her horribly deformed son, Vrac know about Bedie's disappearance? They live on the Estate owned by the local and powerful de Sauvignac family, but Mara is convinced that La Binette and the Sauvignacs know more than they are willing to tell. And what of Alain Sauvignac, who has recently returned from working in Africa? He seems intent on casting Julian as a suspect in Mara's eyes.

Suddenly the countryside takes on a more forbidding aspect to Mara. Wild woods and fields, a scatter map of isolated farms and small communities, the rough clustered dwellings of the villages seem to draw in on themselves, stubbornly closing down secrets that the outsider would be hard put to dislodge.

Although Mara finds herself increasingly attracted to Julian, she wonders if there isn't something funny and even suspicious about a man who seemingly prefers the company of flora to that of women. Julian looks at the cypripedium, a remarkable flower and realizes that it's all too emblematic of his life - "doomed to clutch hopelessly at the things he wanted most, desired objects dangling just out of reach."

Meanwhile, Mara clings to something almost tangible, as if Bedie and her each had hold of a piece of string. Her end has gone slack, but she can't drop it, because she's afraid that if she does, she'll lose her sister forever. Her is world bound by work, "the reconstruction of dank water closets and primitive kitchens, and Bedie 19 years gone," but it occurs to her that viewed from this perspective; she and Julian have a lot in common after all.

Author, Michelle Wan has meticulously researched this first novel, not just the complex science of orchidology, but also the beautiful and varied landscape of southwestern France. Although the mystery plot is formulaic, the tension is effectively maintained throughout, as the quest nears its simultaneously desired and dreaded end.

Wan carries her tale off with panache and she manages to create a heady atmosphere that is stocked with colorful French characters, off-the-beaten-track villages, and clandestine motives that are forever linked to the deadly beauty of the Lady's Slipper. Mike Leonard August 05.

This book is very disappointing. The writing is terrible and rather amateurish. The writer bored me, maybe something's lost in translation from French, I don't know. I already knew the killer the first time he was introduced in the book, although the writer tried to create red herrings which did not work. Mara sounds stupid, immature and inconsistent. Skip this book, it's not worth your time. Peter Mayle's mysteries set in France are way much better that this. At least his novels have sense of humor, suspense, very interesting characters and most important, they are very well written.

Description: An elegant mystery and the opportunity to learn about wild orchids growing in France

Pros: Well done in the 320 pages available

Cons: Too short for truly satisfying development of the plot and characters

Nearly twenty years ago, Mara Dunn's twin sister Bedie disappeared while hiking in the Dordogne in Southwestern France. Everyone, including the police, seems to have forgotten about Bedie, but Mara continues to be haunted by thoughts of her twin. When Mara finds what she believes is Bedie's camera containing the film of a series of wild orchids in varying habitats, she believes that local orchid expert Julian Wood may be able to trace the route Bedie followed-the route on which she disappeared.

Julian reluctantly agrees to help her, not because he's interested in solving the mystery of Bedie's disappearance, but because one of the photographed orchids appears to be a type of Lady's Slipper that doesn't grow in the Dordogne. Julian would like to be the discoverer of that rare orchid.

Mara and Julian encounter a member of locals in their search-some interesting, some peculiar, some frightening-and Mara finds herself in danger before the hunt is over. The mystery is solved and the rare orchid is explained along the way. I enjoyed the excellent descriptions of the area, the inhabitants, and the food as much as the mystery. But everything about the book seemed scant. I kept thinking this was a longer book that had been over-cut: I wanted more.

Recommendation: Buy.

I have travelled extensively in the Dordogne and was able to follow along the geographic detalis nicely. An interesting story set in the place where the Brits and French fought for 100 years.

This is one of the best mysteries I've ever come across. After taking my time reading to about half-way through the book, from that point on I couldn't put it down. The writing is good, the characters are authetic, but the plot is superb!! I think Wan has developed this mystery as well if not better than even some of Mary Higgins Clark's books.

This story starts out well with a mildly intriguing mystery and a promising setting. Sadly it falls into predicable patterns with the murderer so obvious I had to force myself to finish the novel. Orchids can be fascinating, but here they were used as a premise for mapping out events and their appearances began to read like directions. And to be honest, a few sentences were written so badly my jaw dropped. Skip it. Read Minette Walters, Tony Hillerman or Steig Larsson so you won't feel like you lost time you'll never get back.

Having lived in Toulouse and traveled extensively throughout the south of France, I wanted to give Wan a try for both the setting of her mystery and the interesting connection it made to a rare orchid. Unfortunately, while the description of the area and the idea of a search for a rare orchid were interesting, the book was less than well written; the storyline most pedestrian and predictable. I would not recommend this work to a reader who likes the mysteries of Henning Mankell, Ake Edwardson, Karin Fossum, Qiu Xiaolong, Peter Robinson, P.D. James, Elizabeth George, Philip Kerr, Sjowall and Wahloo, Rebecca Pawel, Donna Leon, or Andrea Camilleri.

I must confess I could not finish this book. I will generally finish a book when I've invested time in it, and care about the characters, even with major flaws.

But this book was deadly, I didn't care about the characters in anyway, nor did the non-mystery compel me to finish the novel. The worst sin a mystery novel can contain is not having an interesting, and compelling mystery. At minimum it must give me something to detect!

I feel that this book belongs with the "cat" and other niche mysteries, which I suspect are published to appeal to senseless consumers rather than actually provide a satisfying novel of mystery and suspense.

Thus unless you are extremely partial to Orchids and have way too much time and money, read something else.