Customer Reviews

Haunt Me Still

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I really loved Jennifer Lee Carrell's first Kate Stanley mystery/thriller, "Interred With Their Bones," about the search for a missing Shakespeare play; this one, about the search for both a missing earlier version of a key scene in "Macbeth" and a missing 15-year-old girl, not so much.

What is it, I wonder, about all these disappointing second novels from authors whose first novels made a huge, huge splash--Julia Glass and Joshua Ferris, for example, and now Carrell: Are they pushed relentlessly by agents and publishers to get the next one into print while their name and fame is still hot? Or were they just trying too hard to top themselves and it showed?

In the notes at the back of this book Carrell credits her editors and agent with nursing her through "a writers' block of cursed proportion." Maybe they should have just left her alone to work it out in its own good time. Because the result, while as erudite and intricate a puzzle as its predecessor, is a convoluted mess. It's overstuffed with characters but little character development--and hard enough to keep them all straight, let alone get invested in what happens to them. Actually there's just too much of just about everything: witches and witchery, curses and cauldrons, rites and rituals, murders and murderers, myths, mirrors, magic, madness, mayhem, manuscripts, a multiplicity of crazed killers, kidnappers, knives, guns, explosions, whispered threats, 16th Century history, a constant parade of nonstop narrow escapes with lots of racing and chasing hither and thither around the heather and down dark corridors and even across the Atlantic, with rarely ever any slowing of pace where the reader could catch a breath long enough to figure out what's going on or--by about the halfway point--even care anymore. Sad, to say, it was a chore just to plow through it all.

`Haunt Me Still,' the sequel to the highly successful (and satisfying) `Interred in Their Bones,' is Jennifer Lee Carrell's latest offering in the romantic suspense genre.

Unfortunately, it seems more difficult to write that second novel in a series than the first. Readers' expectations run high, and sometimes the muse just fails. Carrell's novel lacks the panache and force of her earlier book.

`Haunt Me Still' picks up Shakespearian scholar and theatrical director Kate Stanley on her way to Scotland to direct a private production of `Macbeth.' And she is heading straight into the traditional 1950-ish suspense novel set up - lonely castle in the Highlands, antique daggers, witches, and the refrain `Don't go up the hill alone.' Right. Add to that a still lovely aged retired actress, a kidnapping, the occasional bloody body to stumble over, a lost manuscript, and all the usual romantic suspense elements have come together. And often it makes for a good, if predictable, read.

However, much of `Haunt Me Still' deals with the myths surrounding `Macbeth' the play. There are times in fiction when background can be a burden for author and reader alike, and that occurs here. Carrell spends far too much time on historical exposition and too little on character development.

Another problem that authors too often face with the second book in a series is what to do with the romantic interest developed in the first book. Readers of `Interred with Their Bones' may remember Ben Pearl the security expert that Kate rode happily off into the sunset with. Alas, it turned out to be a bumpy ride. Put bluntly, Ben has dumped Kate and moved on; Kate hasn't. Ben reappears here as a peripheral character. But then to be honest, most of the characters seem secondary to the historical context.

For those of us who need to know what happened next to Kate Stanley, `Haunt Me Still' may be required reading. Carrell is a literate author (not to be scoffed at these days) and her writing style is pleasant; her historical research, reliable.

But be warned: this book did not come together well into a cohesive whole.

Three and one half stars - which translates to - it's not as good as it could be, but better than so many other books that reach print. However, readers might want to wait for the paper edition.

This book was a major disappointment to me because I was very much looking forward to a clever mystery based on Shakespeare's Macbeth. What I found was a tortuously improbable plot that managed to make Shakespeare buffoonish and dull.

Kate, our protagonist, is summoned to Scotland, supposedly for dinner with a formally famous actress, Lady Nairn, who collects Macbeth memorabilia. Upon Kate's arrival, she discovers that she is being asked to direct the "cursed" play at the castle using this collection. Meanwhile, Kate's cast has already been selected and is assembling shortly. Of course, sinister figures lurk and eavesdrop, and not long afterwards, all the actors find themselves menaced by Machiavellian villains bent on stealing sacred objects and kidnapping Lily, the granddaughter of Lady Nairn. Kate becomes embroiled in the scenario when she finds a mysterious patterned blade, unscathed by time, on a sacred hilltop and has a vision of Lily, bound and gagged. Despite all the warnings, Lily is stolen away at a Scottish festival, and then Lady Nairn refuses to call the police and urges Kate, a scholar of stage history, to save the wayward adolescent. Ultimately the villains make their desires known by hanging clues off dead bodies, whispering threats in sacred spaces, and leaving mysterious phone calls for Kate. She is to track down an earlier version of Macbeth in which Shakespeare has purposefully included a rite of black magic that the villains want to reenact to achieve great power. Kate embarks on a wild and thoroughly implausible adventure that includes a ritual Aztec sacrifice in the British Museum, a gunfight during a production of the Phantom of the Opera, a wade through an icy cold loch (during which our underdressed heroine does not suffer from frostbite or hypothermia), and a search of a ruins in the middle of nowhere that leads to a tangled and, well, silly ending.

I couldn't fathom Lady Nairn at all. She loses her beloved granddaughter to people she suspects of killing her husband, and she asks a Shakespeare scholar to find the child. Then, she deliberately only tells Kate about one of the people she believes to be involved, saving the more evil villain for a later revelation. The former actress is a Wiccan priestess, but, when strangers interrupt her rites (held on her property), she just leaves. She doesn't ask who they are or call the police. She goes home to bed. The novel accepts the idea of powerful magic, both good and bad, but Lady Nairn never consults a seer to find out where her granddaughter is. She doesn't recognize a close relative until last minute and seems fairly ineffectual as a guardian of a teenager. One starts to wonder if she doesn't want to be rid of her granddaughter rather than save her.

After celebrating Shakespeare's poetry in the novel, we are supposed to accept that Shakespeare's brilliance may be the result of black magic. Then we must listen to Kate's long speech about how he used his infernally given talent in a proper way and that makes him a genius still. (Glad she redeemed the Bard.) We have to accept that Kate can unravel rather silly clues in secret missives written by long dead nineteenth century actors, who, for unexplained reasons, have happened upon the material at some point. We must marvel that the police are so inept that Kate is capable of slipping by them whenever a scene erupts in a public place. Page after page of incredible plot twists begins to weigh the whole work down.

Lastly, and this point is perhaps negligible in comparison to the rest, but Kate is invited to dinner only. She does not bring a change of clothes and then is asked to stay overnight. As far as I can tell, the entire adventure happens almost exclusively in that set of clothes. She never sleeps (OK she naps occasionally) and never takes a shower or brushes her teeth, even though she rolls down hills, gets covered in blood, wades through water, etc. She has to be one of the most hygienically challenged characters I've ever read about in any mystery.

In the store, I had a choice between this book and a biography of Lewis Carroll. In retrospect, I should have bought the biography because at least in it, any nonsense would be intentional.

I can't review the story without making several comments about the electronic version of this book. I noticed that it's an e-book from the publisher, and you can definitely tell the difference. I was only about three chapters in when I noticed that for some reason all proper nouns beginning with the letter R are not capitalized. You may think that this is a minor annoyance, but it seriously interferes with the reading and enjoyment of the story, especially when one of the quasi-central characters is named Ravensbrook . . . and she traveled to Rome. Other glaring word replacements ("in" for "is" and the like) make it a real challenge to get through a chapter without wishing you'd bought the print version.

As for the story, I felt that the introduction to the main characters and premise was exceedingly rushed. It's almost as if the writer were in such a hurry to get to the meat and bones of the mystery that she only gave lip service introductions: "Here is Lady Nairn. Here is her Niece. Here's that guy the protagonist is obviously still in love with."

When the action picked up dramatically, I had to mentally stay with the game in order to get interested, because the author hadn't spent enough time making me care about any of the characters. The niece is in danger? Big deal! She's a spoiled brat! Why should I care about what happens to her?

A little more time spent in setting the scene and investing in more than one dimension of the characters would have paid handsome dividens here. As it is, I read through the last one-tenth of the book only to find out how the story ends . . . not because I cared about any of the characters caught up in the escapade.

If "Interred With Their Bones" was an uneven novel, this one is even more so. The historical references are fascinating, and they have been the catalyst for many a satisfying search session. The characters, though, not so much. I can't help but draw comparisons between Carrell's work and Gruber's "The Book of Air and Shadows." Gruber's effort was an accomplished, literate romp with characters you'd love to meet. Carrell should take a page from his book.

And, whatever you do, don't say I didn't warn you about the annoying e-book version! Seriously, publisher, get some editors to look at your products!!!

Haunt Me Still is Ms. Carrell's second novel featuring the adventurous Kate Stanley, a theater scholar turned director, especially of Shakespeare's plays, who manages to get herself into (and with some help, out of) many very dangerous situations, all more or less tied to traditions or questions related to Shakespeare and his plays. In this novel, the questions raised have to do with Shakespeare's depiction of the Weird Sisters/Witches in Macbeth. Since Kate is herself a theater person, and is embroiled with theater folk and others as she considers directing a very special production of Macbeth, a subsidiary question is the nature and origins of the superstitions rampant among actors and other theatrical types with reference to this play--a play thought to be cursed. Every actor who has been involved in productions of Macbeth, or knows anyone who has been, will reel off anecdotes about the terrible mishaps that go along with every production or even every performance of the Play.

Because the producer of the Play wants to use materials collected over many years related to the original production of the Play at Hampton Court, and because those materials are variously related to magic and witchcraft, whether black or white, Kate finds herself caught in an increasingly threatening sequence of events involving ancient knives, sacrificial cauldrons, and a prophetic mirror, as well as a coven threatening the life of a young girl whom Kate feels obliged to protect or rescue.

The novel is undeniably clever, though it races along at a sometimes comically "adventurous" pace, piling improbabilities onto impossibilities and hoping that the reader will be sufficiently engrossed that the absurdity of some of the connections will pass unnoticed. A certain amount of dazzle and some sophisticated descriptions of interesting places provide distractions from improbability, as is characteristic of the more accomplished thrillers. Unfortunately, Ms Carrell is not yet entirely in control of the clever narrative dodges and deceptions that make the best thrillers seem to be seamless; the "joins" are often all too apparent in this novel, and the rapid succession of cliffhanging events (in a couple of cases, these are literally cliffhanging events) can seem way over the top, reminding one of Indiana Jones or the hero of Mr. Brown's adventures (similarly an "academic") who can hardly turn a corner without stepping on a body, a lost weapon, or a fascinating manuscript that contains secrets lost (until now) for hundreds of years. And so on.

On the whole, I enjoyed reading Haunt Me Still, and would recommend it to those who like this kind of diversion. Even though Ms. Carrell includes several passages expressing fervent (and critically astute) admiration for Shakespeare's works, the book won't provide much new understanding of Macbeth or other Shakespeareana, but it will give some pungent experiences of the Scottish highlands and of a few parts of London. Expect a lively read and a fair-to-middling work, and you will not be disappointed.

This book had all kinds of things that I thought would be really interesting in it - witches, Macbeth, the theater, history - but for some reason the book was very hard to stay focused on. I think it was because I like books that center more around characters, and this book seemed to be centered more around information. I'm giving it 5 stars because I'm sure someone who is really interested in the subject matter of this book will love it. There are lots of quotes from Shakespeare and lots of historical information from that time period. The book also has kind of an old scary movie feel to it that was kind of fun. But, I think if you are more used to "cozy" type mysteries, like I am, you'll find this book hard to stick with.

I was incredibly disappointed in the lack of attention to detail in the publication of this book. The typos...most appallingly the failure to capitalize names, random periods, no periods...really took away from the value of this book, though. I would not recommend purchasing the kindle edition. Hopefully, the publisher did not publish the book this way in hard copy. Not sure why it's acceptable in e-edition.

Macbeth is my favourite of Shakespeare's plays and I had high hopes for Jennifer Lee Carrell's sequel to "Interred with their Bones." In the end, I was disappointed. While the premise of the book is fascinating- what would happen if Shakespeare had written a ritual of real magic into the pages of Macbeth?- the execution feels sloppy. Chapters end with unfortunate cliches, the main character is never more than a hair's breadth ahead of the "bad guys" and with the exception of Kate and Ben (both of whom we met in the first book), the characters feel like nothing more than wooden caracitures. We have the worried, doting grandmother, the headstrong and rebellious teenager, the darkly scary "man behind the curtain" type villain, and the fairly typical jilted lover. When one of the main characters is kidnapped and held for ransom, I didn't feel any particular kind of sympathy. I was aware that I was supposed to care (the character is a 15-year old girl), but she was so one-dimensional that it didn't matter very much to me.

Perhaps what I found most disappointing was the way that Carrell used the premise of magic to cover up what felt like glaring plot holes. For example, when the main protagonist must excape a deadly situation and has no way out, she finds herself "rescued" by unknown forces. I understand that ritual magic plays a huge part in the this book due to the Macbeth connection, but it strains the bonds of credulity to their absolute limit.

In the end, if Carrell does write another part of this series (from the ending of the book it looks like there may be another one coming), I have no doubt that I will read it, which, at the end of the day, is the purpose of any writer- to keep a readership. I just cannot help feeling that Carrell can do better. I would like to see more time given to fleshing out characters and their relationships, instead of telling us how things are. I would like Kate (the heroine) to be able to do something without the villain sneaking up behind her (when it happens once, it adds suspense. When it happens 12 times, I just feel like throwing the book across the room). However, Carrell's command of Shakespeare is above reproach and I am curious to see where she will be taking this series.

I love Shakespeare, I'm crazy about mystery novels. I thought this book was written especially for me. But crafting a great mystery is more difficult than it seems as this book demonstrates. The historical allusions are fascinating and the mysteries around MacBeth sound so intriguing that I can't wait to read up on the Scottish play's history. But this plot is so convuluted that I struggled to follow it, and gave up caring early on. This is the kind of novel where one of the lead characters announces almost 200 pages in that she has a granddaughter that she's doesn't talk about because she's so...evil.

The heroine is a noted director of Shakespearean plays who is mysteriously called to the British Isles, to the home of a once famous actress. There may or may not be a play that may or may not have predated MacBeth, which may or may not tie in with a famous ancestor of the actress, and there may or may not be a disappearance of the actress's grandchild, because she disappears at one point causing a great flurry - but then reppears again and no one seems to care too much. Especially me, the reader. Then the granddaughter disappears again, and now the police are after the director as one of the main suspects. As far as I could tell it was lot of sound and fury and not much else.

I should say first that I read this book and not the first in the series. I was told that this was a stand alone, but you know it always helps to read the first one, I think. Having said that, I REALLY wanted to love this book. It had so many unique elements, and so much potential, but I could not get into it. I read about half and finally gave up. I enjoy mysteries and historical fiction, but found that the characters and story were not compelling enough to keep me reading.