24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
New Entry into the Archeology type of Mystery, July 26, 2002
Emma Fielding is trying to find the site of Fort Providence. The Fort is the first known English settlement in the United States, predating Jamestown by a few years. By good chance the likely site is on the property of her old friend Pauline Westbrook who gives her blessing to the dig. Shortly after arrival Emma finds a body on the beach and is threatened by a pothunter with a gun. Strangely, a senior colleague with no interest in New England archeology stops by to examine the site. Worst of all, Pauline's house burns down with her in it. She had just changed her will to benefit Emma, so now she is a suspect. There are also alot of strange things going on in the anthropology department at her college. Emma has to get to the bottom of things, hopefully without adding her own corpse to the body count.
This is a very quick moving mystery. The author takes the reader into the world and work of the archeologist. She goes into just enough detail for illustration and not so much that you are bored. The characters are very vivid and there is alot of action. It wasn't too difficult to solve the mystery, she leaves alot of clues, but it is alot of fun getting to the solution.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
not your average woman protagonist, February 18, 2002
By A Customer
Emma Fielding, a young archaeologist, is excavating the earliest English settlement in the US. As if this wasn't exciting enough, the site ends up yielding more than 17th-century pot sherds. Before long Emma is confronted by a very modern dead body, then another, then a third. Soon she's feeling the heat : the locals are wondering if she's somehow responsible for the sudden crime wave in their sleepy Maine town. In the meantime, Emma is beginning to suspect a rival may be out to destroy her reputation - or worse. So Emma finds herself puzzling over not one, but two mysteries : who is the killer- and what is the link to her precious archaeological site ? With the help of an unforgettable cast of friends and supporters, Emma gets to the bottom of it all, but not without considerable danger to herself.
"Site Unseen" stands out from the many books with female heroines in mystery fiction in many ways.
The most important one is that from the very first page on, Emma Fielding strikes the reader as REAL. She's not a superthin glamour-gal, nor a physical fitness freak with the muscles of a SWAT team member. Her dreams (to get tenured, to be able to spend more time with her husband) and her worries (is she good enough ? Will she make it ?) are instantly recognizable and easy to identify with. An interesting aspect of Emma's life is her happy marriage to Brian. I find it refreshing to meet a heroine who's got her personal life more or less under control - no three divorces in her past, no abusive ex-boyfriends, no sexual confusion. Brian is one of the most attractive domestic partners for fictional characters I've come across in years. As a laid-back Californian, he's the perfect foil for Emma's East-Coast personality.
Although Emma clearly steals the show, the author has lavished loving care on the secondary characters as well. My two personal favorites are Brian's friend,Kam, and Teresa Moretti, the medical examiner who loves her job perhaps a little too much. Let me illustrate this with two quotes. When Kam dares to give Emma a pep talk , she peevishly asks him where he got his degree in psychology. The Pakistan-born, Oxford-educated Kam replies, unperturbably : "Oh, you know, Himalayan lamas and all. Same place I learned to sustain a woman in a continuous state of orgasmic pleasure for hours on end. "
And here's the irascible Dr. Moretti describing an autopsy : "Okay, then we have a wee peeksy in the gut, and we find the remains of dindins."
If you like strong women protagonists, this is the mystery for you. If you like unusual locales and twisting plots, this is the mystery for you. If you like unforgettable minor characters, this is the mystery for you. If you like... oh, what the heck, go out and buy this book and read it. I guarantee you'll enjoy it.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Start of a Great Series, April 25, 2002
Emma Fielding is an archaeologist trying to succeed out of the shadow of her famous archaeologist grandfather. She's returned to her childhood home to work on a site that could guarantee her receiving tenure, but her discovery of a body could destroy that chance.
Soon more deaths follow, and although the sheriff believes she's innocent the town's suspicion of her grows. Emma must also deal with a cockey student worker, another sullen student who seems to wish that he were anywhere but on the site, and that student's father who sees Emma as a rival to his position at their college.
Emma herself is a wonderful character. She's impulsive, decisive, and survives the academic politics through her sardonic sense of humor. She also has a great relationship with her husband, who happens to be Asian (yet this is refreshingly treated matter-of-factly and never made an issue). Other characters are as well entertaining and believable, including an ancient medical examiner who ironically sees Emma as a morbid invader of the dead.
Emma's struggle to retain her sense of humor as well as retain control over her career at the college, her site, and the students who work it creates a fast-paced read that also provides a fascinating glimpse of an archaeological excavation. My only disappointment with this novel was that it had to end. I look forward to the next Emma Fielding mystery, Grave Consequences.
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