Fruitful Bodies (Sara Selkirk Mysteries) [Mass Market Paperback]

Morag Joss (Author)

Book Description

Series: Sara Selkirk Mysteries | Publication Date: July 26, 2005

In Bath, England, good health is an ancient tradition and a booming business. One local font of wellness is the Sulis Clinic, where the rich come for rest, repair, and repasts of strictly organic–and not terribly pleasant–cuisine. World-famous cellist Sara Selkirk has come to Sulis to admit her former music teacher. The poor dear has fallen into decrepitude, and has lately been the unlikely suspect in the shocking murder in a local pub.

Distracted from her upcoming Dvorak performance in Salzburg, Sara begins to wonder if there isn’t an odd link between Sulis and the murder. But another death soon rocks Sara to her core, leading her to a choice she will regret–and a killer she can no longer avoid.…

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A follow-up to Fearful Symmetry, Joss's latest Sara Selkirk mystery offers another deftly textured evocation of an idyllic British locale. As the novel opens, famous cellist Selkirk comes across a former mentor whose musical star has drowned in alcoholism. She takes the woman in, despite the reservations of her boyfriend, police detective Andrew Poole, but when another friend, James, starts having stomach problems, she turns to Bath's fashionable Sulis Clinic. The clinic seems like the perfect answer to both problems—until Sara is drawn into the murky relationships involving its governing triad: the charismatic but secretive proprietor; his unstable organic farmer son, Ivan; and Ivan's wife, Hilary, a fierce if often misguided protector of both the clinic and her husband's fragile equilibrium. When a Japanese guest at Ivan and Hilary's isolated B&B is murdered, Poole enters the case with a vigor that further strains his already tense relationship with Sara. Then, clinic patients begin to die, luring Sara herself into detection and danger. An overly complex plot and a series of contrivances weaken the story, but Joss portrays characters and relationships that are meaty enough to satisfy.
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Review

“Joss has a remarkable talent–reminiscent of early P. D. James—and a gift for creating wonderful characters and relationships.” —Yorkshire Post

“Morag Joss gets better with each book. But there can be no uncertainty about the high quality of the writing and plotting.”—Donna Leon

"Another deftly textured evocation of an idyllic British locale."—Publishers Weekly

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Dell (July 26, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0440242436
• ISBN-13: 978-0440242437
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 1 x 7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #523,011 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Visit Morag's website at www.moragjoss.com

Morag Joss grew up on the west coast of Scotland. She read English at St Andrews University and then studied singing at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London.
In 1996 she won an award in a national competition with her first short story. Starting to write was, she says, "discovering a lifelong ambition I didn't know I had."
The first of her three Sara Selkirk novels, FUNERAL MUSIC, was nominated for a Dilys Award by the American Independent Mystery Booksellers Association. She's also the author the 2003 Silver Dagger winner HALF BROKEN THINGS, which was adapted for UK national television and starred Penelope Wilton (available on DVD), and of THE NIGHT FOLLOWING, which won an Edgar Allan Poe Award nomination for Best Novel 2009.
Morag Joss was a Heinrich Böll writer in residence on Achill Island, Ireland, in 2008, where she wrote part of her seventh novel, AMONG THE MISSING, due for USA publication in autumn 2010.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars 3 1/2 stars: an unexpectedly absorbing read, October 23, 2005

By 

tregatt (Portland, Oregon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fruitful Bodies (Sara Selkirk Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

Somewhat to my surprise, I found myself being totally absorbed with "Fruitful Bodies" (the third Sara Selkirk mystery installment) -- this in spite of the fact that I did grow a little tired of Sara's and Andrew's continuing relationship problems, and even as I began to wonder, for a goodish chunk of the book if Andrew really was cut out to be a police detective! But in spite of this issues, "Fruitful Bodies" did keep me happily absorbed to the very end.

Much to her dismay and chagrin, Sara suddenly finds herself surrounded with sick people and to be unofficially in charge of them! It all begins when she notices her former music instructor, Joyce Cruikshank, almost incoherently drunk at one of her concerts. And when it turns out that Joyce has been evicted from her bedsit, Sara knows that she will have to assume the care for Joyce and to (at the very least) try and get her sorted out. A lucky break comes when Sara visits her best friend and fellow musician James Ballantyne at the Sulis Clinic (a private concern that's run on wholly on naturopathy and holistic lines, where those that can afford it retreat to for rest and special care). And when Sara realises that because the former music therapist had suddenly quit her job, and there is a job opening, she immediately thinks of Joyce. What a perfect place to put Joyce in: not only would she have a job and room and board (and be out of Sara's hair) but she would also be in a place where she would be able to get some treatment for her alcoholism. But when a rather horrific murder takes place at the Sulis that seems to have a tenuous connection to a murder enquiry that DCI Andrew Poole is conducting, Sara begins to wonder if placing both James and Joyce at the Sulis Clinic was a good idea after all...

The wonderful thing about "Fruitful Bodies" is that it is a well written mystery novel with some nicely realised character portrayals. The not so wonderful part is that it takes a while for the pace to pick up -- for more than half the book, the novel remains stuck on the relationship problems that Sara and Andrew suffer and the initial murder enquiry that Andrew is conducting, and which seems to go no where for quite a while. (Which of course leads me to my other point of wondering if Andrew really had it in him to be a police detective, because he really flounders for more than half the book and makes some really bad mistakes in the investigation.) Fortunately, the pace does pick up once the second murder takes place. The other problem I had (and a spoiler alert here) was that Sara commits a sexual indiscretion towards the end of the book because she's feeling devastated. I don't think that I'm that much of prude (OK perhaps I am) but I couldn't help but feel disappointed with her behaviour. But then I have never been completely comfortable with the manner in which Sara frequently conducts herself anyway. In spite of it all though, disappointments and everything, I will admit that unlike "Fearful Symmetry," "Fruitful Bodies" was a truly absorbing book, and is a testament to Morag Joss' excellent writing style.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars terrific psychological thriller, July 26, 2005

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fruitful Bodies (Sara Selkirk Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

In Bath, internationally renowned cellist Sara Selkirk plays Dvorek on stage when she notices in the audience the pink suit. Her first cello teacher Professor Cruikshank, who tutored her back in the late 1970s at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music, is attending her performance. Afterward Sara obtains work and treatment for her alcoholic ailing pedagogue as a musical therapist at the renowned Sulis Clinic run by Dr Golightly.

While she helps her former instructor, her beloved Detective Chief Inspector Andrew Poole has rid himself of his disaffected ex-wife Valerie, but that fails to improve his relationship with Sara. Andrew explains that regardless of where their romance goes, he must put his kids' needs before their desires. She may detest that, but Sara knows he is right.

When a Japanese tourist dies in an apparent homicide, nebulous links surface to the Sulis Clinic but especially to Professor Cruikshank. Besides insuring that her mentor is doing okay, Sara needs to prove that the professor had nothing to do with the murder that Andrew also investigates even as he asks her to stay out of it. A second homicide confirms her belief that all is not well at Sulis and she plans to insure that the killer pays the piper.

The third Sara Selkirk amateur sleuth tale (see FUNERAL MUSIC and HALF BROKEN THINGS) is a terrific psychological thriller that grips readers from the opening note until the final coda is played. The story line is filled with several twists that will catch the audience unaware, but like it predecessors stupendous Sara is the star performer who turns the tale into a virtuoso concerto worth reading.

Harriet Klausner

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars sour note, April 8, 2007

By 

Mystery Fan - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Fruitful Bodies (Sara Selkirk Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

The Sara Selkirk series started out in a high note--an intelligent musician as the central character (so often, classical musicians are the villains in pedestrian mysteries)--and the first two books were interesting to read, set in Bath, and not about Jane Austen! But Sara's dithering, on-again, off-again relationship with the police detective is getting tiresome--they're not teenagers, after all. And her sexual stupidity in this third volume of the series is merely annoying, rather than sympathetic.