The Drowning Pool (Willow King Mysteries) [Hardcover]

Natasha Cooper (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1997 | Series: Willow King Mysteries

When forty-four-year-old civil servant and romance writer Willow King finds herself experiencing motherhood for the first time, to prove that she is not stuck at home, she begins investigating the murder of her obstetrician, only to become the killer's next target.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Feisty, intelligent, independent-minded Willow King, British civil servant turned successful romance novelist, has undergone yet another metamorphosis. Now married, she's just delivered a lovely daughter named Lucinda. Raging postpartum hormones, some worrying medical complications, and a nagging fear that she won't know how to care for her child temporarily overwhelm Willow. But when the obstetrician who delivered Lucinda is found murdered, Willow bounds into action. Pumping policeman-husband Tom for information and inventing ways to sleuth from the confines of her hospital bed give Willow just the stimulation she needs to get over her postpartum blues. But the case turns ugly when the killer comes after Willow and threatens Lucinda's life. An entertaining, cleverly plotted story that also provides some illuminating insights about parenthood, love, and marriage. Emily Melton

From Kirkus Reviews

Civil Servant/romance novelist Willow King checks into Dowting's Hospital just in time for the death of senior obstetrician Alexander Ringstead, who can't attend to Willow's postpartum hemorrhage because he's been drowned in his own birthing pool. Ringstead cut such a high professional and personal profile that there's an embarrassment of suspects: his society mistress and her ruthless financier husband, his angry ex-lover, the activists of WOMB (Women Overtake Male Birthing) picketing the hospital, the resentful aspirant for Ringstead's consultancy, the cost-cutting business manager he'd opposed over the issue of rationing obstetric care. Sadly, Cooper, as usual (Rotten Apples, 1995, etc.), is too preoccupied in limning the latest changes in Willow's domestic establishment to give these promising lesser fry more than a cursory glance. For the Willow-smitten only. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press (March 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312151306
• ISBN-13: 978-0312151300
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,668,852 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not quite mediocre, January 30, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Drowning Pool (Willow King Mysteries) (Hardcover)

This is what I'd call a warm-fuzzy. The characters are all too nice to be believable and the mystery is lame.

I object most of all to the awkward way the author uses adjectives. In the first chapter alone we have "kindly patronage", "craggily handsome", "amazingly kind", "gloriously confidence-building" "refreshingly cool", "reassuringly unhysterical", "enormously luxurious", "achingly tired", "irresistably reminded", and "frightenly young". The whole book reads like someone told her to lengthen it by 8 pages, so she got out her list of adjectives and started plugging them in.

And how about, "Curiosity got the better of Willow's uncharacteristic yeilding to Tom's wish to protect her from herself." Please! Where was this writer's editor?

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The sixth Willow King book is a good read!, March 17, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The Drowning Pool (Willow King Mysteries) (Hardcover)

At forty-four years of age, romance writer Willow King gives birth to her first child. Her spouse, Scotland Yard Detective Tom Worth is delighted with his new daughter, but frets about Willow's health. Things turn nasty when Willow's obstetrician, Dr. Alexander Ringstead, is found dead in a nearby room. Tom should not have wasted his time worrying about his beloved wife's recovery from the complications she suffered from while giving birth. He should have worried about her starting a new investigation. As soon as Willow learns about the murder, the amateur sleuth gene inside her kicks in and she begins to investigate. ...... Willow soon finds a host of people with grudges with the deceased. Some of the suspects work at the hospital while others were victims of the womanizing doctor. As Willow digs deeper, she places herself and her newborn in danger from a killer, who will resort to anything, including murdering a new mother and her infant, to insure that the case remains unsolved. ..... The sixth Willow King mystery is a very good entry in the series due to the opportunity to see more into the personal lives of Willow, her spouse, and their housekeeper. Though the who-done-it is not quite at the level of the previous entries, it is better then most of the current books on the market. Natasha Cooper is an excellent mystery writer and her latest tale is quite good. However, if readers want a taste of quite great, try one of the previous entries. ......Harriet Klausner

2.0 out of 5 stars Mother Knight, May 23, 2002

By 

Author Bill Peschel "Writers Gone Wild" (Hershey, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Drowning Pool (Worldwide Library Mystery , No 271) (Paperback)

Over six novels, Natasha Cooper's Willow King has gone through more evolutions than the animals on the Galapogos Islands. Once a woman with a secret life -- British civil servant by day and glamorous romance novelist on the weekends -- she has since shed the bureaucracy, wedded a police officer, and opens "The Drowning Pool" by giving birth to her first child, at age 44, while her obstetrician is being unkindly murdered four doors down the hall.

Spending a week in the hospital (possible under Britain's National Health Service plan) gives her time to investigate, and soon uncovers a passel of suspects, including an administrator who had been at loggerheads with the doctor over budget cuts, the wife of a wealthy businessman the doctor was having an affair with, and a nurse whom he had fired.

The solution, however, seems marred by a motive and suspect tossed in from left field, and "The Drowning Pool" is wet-blanketed by King's worries over her responsibilities toward the baby, her relations with a husband who objects to her investigations, and the demands on once was her private and minutely controlled life. As an outrageously successful novelist who has, as a friend observed, a "stunning house, perfect and loyal housekeeper, health, brains, love, Superintendent Worth to attend to your every whim and now a baby as well," it's hard to feel sympathetic toward a woman who wonders if she is losing her identity. Most mothers I know would risk that and more to have a full-time housekeeper around to change the diapers.