Customer Reviews

Discovering the Body: A Novel

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This book is much better than a typical murder mystery, offering not only suspense but also a nuanced portrait of the grief and fear that follow a murder. Howard's novel takes a lot of surprising twists and turns, yet always remains plausible. The main character, Linda, is an interesting heroine; she is neither damsel in distress nor crime expert. Thankfully, the book doesn't get bogged down in macabre details like so many recent mysteries, but the threat of danger throughout the novel was enough to make me keep the light on all night.

I couldn't stop reading Discovering the Body until I had finished it -- at three in the morning! I was taken in at once by the tensions among the characters -- by Linda Garbo's self doubt about her role as a murder witness and her certainty that there was someone "out there" observing her, waiting for her to make a false move. I was even more intrigued by her relationship with the murder victim Luci Cole. The two women had a bond based on Luci's need to depend on Linda and Linda's need to be needed, but their friendship had not gone very deep until it was too late. Remembering Luci, Linda comes to see how she failed her in many ways and may even have precipitated her murder. Luci's journal, like those of Anaas Nin, is an enigmatic blend of truth-telling and invention. The journal may or may not reveal the truth about Luci's life during the days before she died, and Linda's eagerness to treat the journal entries as if they were testimony add to the suspense as she closes in on the person she thinks is the killer. Linda realizes as the story unfolds that she has barely seen beneath the surfaces of most of the people around her. Luci was surely more complex, more troubled, than Linda had ever realized. Other townspeople, too, are barely appreciated by Linda until she starts investigating Luci's murder. Judy is Linda's opposite in many ways, a good friend against whom Linda can play off her suspicions. Other characters are equally well developed: Charlie, John Bender, Tess, Bill Allard. The minister, Reverend Gus, is an especially interesting character. One of Howard's strengths is dialog which reveals much more than characters realize they are giving away. I didn't see the ending coming at all, and found it very satisfying -- complicated and absolutely earned by all the detail that preceded it. All in all, this is a fine novel.

Mary Howard's thoughtful mystery, "Discovering the Body", is carefully crafted and requires the reader to pay close attention. The narrator, Linda, is an artist who notices lines, colors, details. She is remarkably observant about outer details, but is uninformed, even naive, about inner details, about the emotional component of situations, about the true feelings of people. In these pages, we follow her inward journey as she learns more about the people of her small Iowa town. In the process she learns more about herself and how she is perceived by others. As Howard's tale unfolds, some mysteries are revealed. Other matters are left ambiguous. Howard's book, in the style of Ruth Rendell, makes demands on the reader: Some "facts" must be inferred, and other surprising facts must be assimiliated into the general plot. "Discovering the Body" is not a quick, toss-away pleasure, but it offers satisfaction to the patient reader.

With Discovering the Body, Mary Howard has created a very literate suspense novel. While many suspense and mystery novels are formulaic and the language seems designed to appeal to the least common denominator, Howard defies tradition and creates a well written novel with fully developed characters. Because of this, the novel moves more slowly than many typical suspense novels but the experience seems to run a little deeper than most as well. The action is slow and the revelations are few and far between but this does not count against the novel as a whole. If you're tired of formulaic suspense novels or mysteries, try Discovering the Body. And if you're a fan of well written fiction, you'll like it as well.

Each sentence is carefully crafted, each sentence gives me a clear sense of place and character, each sentence leads me to wonder and question what will happen next -- all that means a "great read" to me. My biggest problem was that I wanted to flip to the end to see what happened because the suspense build-up was incredible. I didn't do that and don't you do it either because you'll miss too much of an intriguing story!

I read the other reviews about this book which inspires a lively debate and opinions that are poles apart. After reading Mary Howard's debut novel, I confess to being of two minds! This thriller explores primarily the hazardous process of memory as a tool of evidence. On a hot, summer afternoon just outside a small, dusty town, artist Linda Garbo discovers the body of friend Luci, sprawled in the blood-drenched kitchen of her home. Her recollection of the events leading to this discovery helps convict neighbour Peter Garvey of the murder. But Linda, who subsequently married Luci's boyfriend and, oddly, lives in the house where the crime took place, has nagging doubts about Garvey's guilt. So does a local newspaper reporter. They become wary allies on the path to solving the mystery. In the beginning we know little of the murder victim's life, but by the end of the book a complex portrait has been drawn of a wayward, brutalised soul, as her personal diary is placed into Linda's hands and another powerful set of memories is revealed. Her diary implicates family and the residents in a small town which seems to be a hotbed of crime, perversion and paranoia. Any number of people had reasons to kill Luci. Howard spares adjectives and relies on resonant simplicity. Some of the time it works well and her writing is vibrantly alive in Luci's diary. However, I did find some passages woodenly constructed, as if Howard had tried too hard to pare her writing back. Where I expected suspense, there was a void. Linda's relationship with husband Charlie lacked credibility. However this is still a page-turning thriller that will serve well for holiday fare.

I certainly beg to disagree with Pavluvcik's review of this novel and I hope that others will not be so easily discouraged by it. Mary Howard is a fine writer, with a subtle turn of mind and phrase. If you are looking for a quick-paced, mindless plot with lots of action, then look elsewhere. However, if you are looking for a novel with a psychological twist on the meaning of memory and desire, "truth" and the way we all fit into our worlds, then this is the book for you. Try it!

Linda Garbo comes home to find her friend Luci Cole dead on the kitchen floor with her throat slashed and a bloody knife lying close to the body. She believes she has seen the murderer and her testimony leads to neighbor Peter Garvey's conviction, even though he claimed that he didn't do it.

The murder and it's aftermath throw Linda and Luci's lover, beekeeper Charlie Carpenter together and they marry two years after the trial. Then local reporter John Bender, who believes Garvey was wrongly convicted, talks Linda into meeting with the man she testified against. Garvey, who has admitted that he was Luci's spurned lover, casts doubts into Linda's mind about whether or not she got it right when she testified against him.

Linda starts investigating Luci's life, determined to vindicate herself. However she's soon confronted by the knowledge that she knows little about who her friend was and as she sifts the evidence, she gradually concedes her identification of Luci's killer was a mistake and her effort to find out the truth places her own life in danger.

Mary Howard has written an engrossing and complex psychological thriller that kept my up till dawn. I liked it very much and I think you will too.

This novel is beauifully written and highly suspenseful. The characters are so well developed that every suspect is a sympathetic character -- which adds greatly to the suspense. I couldn't stop reading it! Howard is writing in the tradition of Dorothy Sayers and Ngaio Marsh. This is not what I call the "salted peanut, throw-away" type mystery, but rather a compelling novel about memory, envy, and denial. I recommend it to any reader who enjoys vivid language, memorable characters, and dramatic tension.

"The suspense builds from the first pages of Mary Howard's debut novel--a book so sure handed and graceful that you might forget it's a murder mystery...Howard creates an intricate cast of characters, any one of whom might have killed the artistic, flirtatious victim. Strong dialogue gives us insight into the shifting relationships here, and into Linda's marriage to Charlie, Luci's boyfriend at the time of the murder. Charlie thinks Linda is being paranoid. But the reader shares her increasing uncertainty about her friends, and her facts."