Evan Can Wait: A Constable Evans Mystery [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Rhys Bowen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2001

Constable Evan Evans, sole police officer in the charming Welsh village of Llanfair, is assigned to assist an expedition to raise a World War II German bomber plane from a lake. The whole venture is being filmed for a documentary on World War II and Evans tries to assist the film crew by finding them local people with stories to tell. Little does he realize that resurrecting the past can sometimes mean opening old wounds. After some unhappy confrontations, it is not just the villagers who are upset by the filmmakers. Evans' own life is thrown into turmoil as he discovers his girlfriend Bronwen's past relationship with someone from the film crew.

Tensions build until one of the filmmakers disappears and is eventually found dead in a nearby slate mine. The case grows more complex as Evans slowly uncovers evidence that the victim had many enemies. In the process Evans also exposes an elaborate World War II scheme to hide paintings from the National Gallery. Do these paintings have something to do with the filmmaker's disappearance? How could he be connected to events that took place over half a century ago?

With this fifth addition to her critically acclaimed series, Rhys Bowen creates a colorful, page-turning mystery set in two eras against the backdrop of a uniquely appealing small town filled with unforgettable characters.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The descent by a group of egocentric, flamboyant filmmakers on a small town has been the setup for a number of novels and a few movies. Rhys Bowen takes her crack at it with a tidy little story about a group of documentarians who invade a small village in Wales to capture the raising of a sunken German bomber on film. Llanfair is surrounded by abandoned mineshafts, and when the bombastic producer Grantley Smith is found murdered in one of them, Constable Evan Evans, Bowen's series hero, stumbles down more than a few dead ends before he uncovers the motive. Finding evidence of a stash of paintings from the National Gallery that were hidden at the scene of the murder, Evan uncovers a decades-old plot involving art forgery that doesn't really have much to do with the murder except coincidence. It does, however, keep the narrative moving, as does a love affair between the constable and the schoolteacher, who turns out to have been married to one of the filmmakers. All's well that ends well--except, probably, for the unfortunate title punning to which Bowen (Evan Help Us, Evanly Choirs, and so forth) seems addicted. --Jane Adams --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

When a documentary film crew arrives in the Welsh village of Llanfair to try to raise a WWII German bomber sunk in a lake, Constable Evan Evans finds he has more to do than simply keep the curious at bay in this light police procedural. The film's arrogant and conceited director, Grantley Smith, manages to offend just about everyone, including Evan. To complicate matters, Grantley's partner on the project, Edward Ferrers, turns out to be the ex-husband of Evan's sweetheart, Bronwen Price. When Grantley falls out of the local scenic railway train unharmed, it appears to be an accident. But it's clearly murder when Evan discovers his body in a pool of water in an abandoned mine, weighed down with slate. More suspenseful (and intriguing) are the recorded memoirs, interspersed with the main action, of old Trefor Thomas, who recounts how he and his greedy girlfriend schemed to steal a painting from the National Gallery collection stored in a Welsh mine during WWII. The two seemingly unrelated plot lines knit together nicely in the end. As in the four previous books in the series (Evans Above, etc.), Bowen's great strength is her endearing Welsh characters, from the modest Evan to such amusing locals as the saucy barmaid and the rival chapel preachers. This mystery is sure to appeal to those who prefer old-fashioned, heartwarming stories to tawdry tales full of graphic sex and violence. (Feb. 3)

Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Thorndike Press (May 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0783894511
• ISBN-13: 978-0783894515
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,618,180 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Rhys Bowen's books have been nominated for every major mystery award and she has won thirteen of them to date. She currently writes two historical mystery series, each very different in tone. The Molly Murphy mysteries feature an Irish immigrant woman in turn-of-the-century New York City. These books are multi-layered, complex stories with a strong sense of time and place and have won many awards including Agatha and Anthony. There are 10 book so far in this series plus the free Kindle story, The Amersham Rubies--a great way to introduce new readers to Molly's spunky personality.

Then there is Lady Georgie, Rhys's latest,and very popular, heroine. She's 34th in line to the throne of England, but she's flat broke and struggling to survive in the Great Depression. These books are lighter and funnier than Molly's adventures. They poke gentle fun at the British class system--about which Rhys knonws a lot, having married into an upper class family rather like Georgie's, with cousins with silly nicknames,family ghosts and stately homes. The fifth book, Naughty in Nice, is in stores now, and watch out for a big Christmas book in time for the 2012 holidays.
This year the series received the Readers Hoice Award for favorite mystery series.

Rhys was born in Bath, England and spent a lot of time growing up in Wales with her Welsh relatives. Those childhood experiences colored her first mystery series, about Constable Evans in the mountains of Snowdonia. 10 books including the Edgar nominee Evan's Gate. She has lived in Austria, Germany and Australia, but has called California her home for many years. She now escapes to a condo in Arizona during those cold California winters. When she's not writing she loves to travel, sing, hike and play the Celtic harp.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This author knows how to write delighful and atmospheric myt, January 17, 2001

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Evan Can Wait (Constable Evans Mysteries) (Hardcover)

Everyone from the film crew to his partner Edward Ferrers to the townsfolk of Llanfair and even Evan Evans dislikes visiting documentary director Grantley Smith. Arrogance is an understatement when it comes to the overbearing and demanding Grantley. However, in spite of the conceited Grantley, there remains much excitement over the plans to film a documentary about the nearby sunken World War II Nazi bomber.

Evan's difficult assignment of keeping things smooth for the film crew turns ugly when someone kills Grantley, whose corpse is found in an abandoned mine. As Evan makes inquiries into the murder, he realizes how universally despised the victim was. He also learns that during World War II the crime scene mine was to serve as a place to hide stolen art. However, Evan struggles to find a link between the murder and the stolen art, making uncovering the identity of the culprit extremely difficult.

EVAN CAN WAIT is an entertaining Welsh cozy that provides readers with strong characterizations inside an intriguing plot. The two story lines cleverly tie together to make a powerful tale. In her fifth Evans novel, Rhys Bowen continues to furnish sub-genre fans with one of the better series on the market today.

Harriet Klausner

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Evan Can Wait, March 13, 2001

By 

Sarah B. Garcia (Tempe, Arizona) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Evan Can Wait (Constable Evans Mysteries) (Hardcover)

Rhys Bowen's fifth book in the Constable Evan Evans series combines the gentle humor of the earlier books and a darker undercurrent arising from an incident during World War II. She gives us a glimpse of the effect the War had on the lives of the people of Northern Wales. This subplot along with the comic relief coming from the people of Llanfair make the book one of the best in the Evan Evan series.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A satisfying move forward in the series, March 8, 2002

By 

Suzanne B. Kelly (Palo Alto, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Evan Can Wait (Constable Evans Mysteries) (Paperback)

Many "cozy" mystery series are peppered with colorful characters, amusing inside jokes, and interesting locations. Bowen's Evan Evans series certainly fits this bill, but with "Evan Can Wait" the series moves into deeper, more interesting waters.

As usual, this book finds Evan Evans at home in Llanfair, an underappreciated sleuth whose fellow citizens are as colorful--and as hard to get to know--as the mountainous terrain. As usual, outsiders descend upon the town to wreak various sorts of havoc and get one of their number murdered.

But the mystery in "Evan Can Wait" takes a very satisying turn--we learn a great deal about Bronwen, the town schoolteacher who has been such a good-girl cipher up to this point, and we learn more about some of the darker parts of recent Welsh history, such as the life of a typical slate miner. Not only is there a recent murder to solve, but the murder has links to a decades-old crime and the two are tied together in a satisfying fashion at the end.

In short, it is still a light, amusing read, but with a little more depth to make the characters more real, the situations more complex, the ending a little more nuanced.