Customer Reviews

Evan Can Wait (Evan Evans Mystery)

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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

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.

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.

Constable Evan Evans is still a little miffed about his application for a promotion not being approved. But he's decided to make the best of it and is even thinking about fixing a cottage destroyed in a recent fire and moving in there in preparation for proposing to Bronwen.

Then the village is turned upside down when some filmmakers arrive. They've come to make a documentary about the raising of a World War II German plane that crashed in a nearby lake. Their past connection to Bronwen throws Evan for a loop. But there is tension in this group, and when one of the filmmakers disappears, Evan suspects foul play.

Evan may be able to wait, but I certainly couldn't wait to get through this wonderful book. The villagers of Llanfair are as charming and interesting as ever and I felt right at home. This book seemed to have more connection to the character arcs from the last book, which I enjoyed. The plot twists and turns in all sorts of ways. I had a different suspect every chapter or two. Naturally with a book like that, the logical solution completely escaped me until the end.

While I've enjoyed all of Ms. Bowen's books, this is my favorite to date. You can bet I won't be waiting long before I read another.

I'm so impressed with Rhys Bowen's books. She writes a great story with interesting characters. I'm sold on her work. I expect the series to get better and better. According to her veb site another series will be coming out soon with an Irish woman as the main character. The books are murder mysteries but they manage to be gentle books with quite a bit of depth.

I found Evan Can Wait listed in the Sisters in Crime Books in Print and enjoyed it enormously. Rhys Bowen captures the feeling of life in a Welsh town and tells a super mystery while she does it. I'm now waiting to read the other titles in the series.

Another good book by Rhys Bowen. The main question is, who killed Grantley Smith and why? Our good Constable Evans is hot on the trail. They are several people who would have liked him dead and one of them committed the deed. Evan has to be involved with the raising of a World War II plane, keeping the peace, thinking about stored paintings during the war and his beloved Bronwen. Bowen writes so you can feel like you are there. You really feel like you are part of the Welsh village of Llanfair. If you like a good gentle mystery with lots of Welsh people being described and am sure beautiful county side, you will like this book.