Customer Reviews

The Rampant Reaper: A Charlie Greene Mystery (Charlie Greene Mysteries)

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When her mother asked her to go back with her to Iowa, Charlie Green had wanted to refuse. Iowa and the family there meant nothing to Charlie--noting but the people who had made her mother's life miserable. Still, she couldn't abandon her mother to her ruthless relatives. Charlie goes to Iowa.

Myrtle, Iowa is something of a mystery itself. The town is supported largely by a home for the aged--where, curiously, people go to die but...

Author Marlys Millhiser delivers a quirky and thoughtful mystery. ...

THE RAMPANT REAPER includes knee-slapping humor, but is occasionally hard to follow and sometimes loses track of the mystery completely. As I was reading, I couldn't help wonder if Millhiser is having current problems with her own aging relatives. Perhaps so, because REAPER seemed unable to make up its mind whether it was intended to be a funny-quirky novel, or a thoughtful examination of the way America treats its aging, and saddles its women with these responsibilities.

Though her preference would be to stay home in Southern California, literary agent Charlie Greene agrees to accompany her adopted mother attending a funeral in Myrtle, Iowa. Charlie has not met this side of the family that has never accepted adoption as a source of viable kin. Still, Charlie would do almost anything for her mother, biology professor Edwina Greene, including meeting the extended family even in this backwater.

Once there, Charlie realizes she has an opportunity to uncover the identity of her biological mother, but instead ends up at Gentle Oaks Nursing Home. Though elderly, the patients seem more than senile than the average geriatrics. Most of the senior citizens act petrified in mind and body leaving Charlie to wonder why society allows people to live with what appears no dignity, hope or thought. Apparently someone agrees with Charlie because someone begins killing the residents. Encouraged to uncover the truth, Charlie begins to investigate what seem to be euthanasia killings.

The latest Charlie Green mystery, THE RAMPANT REAPER, is a strange eccentric amateur sleuth tale. The story line centers on what to do for the aging especially when the mind goes and the body is not lagging far behind. However, Marlys Millhiser's efforts to use humor to diffuse the seriousness of the topic come across as iniquitous because the cast including the heroine is nasty. Fans who don't mind an ensemble of misanthropes will enjoy Charlie's sleuthing and the insight into a problem that society would prefer die away.

Harriet Klausner