Customer Reviews

Talk of the Village (Tales from Turnham Malpas)

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4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is the second work in the Turham Malpas series, the story of life in an atypical English village where crazy stuff is always going down. In this volume the villagers are shocked when the old big house gets changed into a fitness center staffed by annoying outsiders. There's also a flower festival, a kidnapping, and sides chosen in a village-wide debate over the practice of poaching.

Quote: "Heavens above, I shall hardly hare to go out."

This series is incredibly enjoyable. This second installment is just as good as the first one, and it focuses on a different main group of villagers than the first book does - although the characters from The New Rector (the first novel) are featured in secondary roles.

This is the second work in the Turham Malpas series, the story of life in an atypical English village where crazy stuff is always going down. In this volume the villagers are shocked when the old big house gets changed into a fitness center staffed by annoying outsiders. There's also a flower festival, a kidnapping, and sides chosen in a village-wide debate over the practice of poaching.

Quote: "Heavens above, I shall hardly hare to go out."

This series is incredibly enjoyable. This second installment is just as good as the first one, and it focuses on a different main group of villagers than the first book does - although the characters from The New Rector (the first novel) are featured in secondary roles.

This is the second work in the Turham Malpas series, the story of life in an atypical English village where crazy stuff is always going down. In this volume the villagers are shocked when the old big house gets changed into a fitness center staffed by annoying outsiders. There's also a flower festival, a kidnapping, and sides chosen in a village-wide debate over the practice of poaching.

Quote: "Heavens above, I shall hardly hare to go out."

This series is incredibly enjoyable. This second installment is just as good as the first one, and it focuses on a different main group of villagers than the first book does - although the characters from The New Rector (the first novel) are featured in secondary roles.

This is the second work in the Turham Malpas series, the story of life in an atypical English village where crazy stuff is always going down. In this volume the villagers are shocked when the old big house gets changed into a fitness center staffed by annoying outsiders. There's also a flower festival, a kidnapping, and sides chosen in a village-wide debate over the practice of poaching.

Quote: "Heavens above, I shall hardly hare to go out."

This series is incredibly enjoyable. This second installment is just as good as the first one, and it focuses on a different main group of villagers than the first book does - although the characters from The New Rector (the first novel) are featured in secondary roles.

I quite enjoyed the exploits of the villagers,once more! I'm looking forward to book 3!

Stories start, and are resolved in 1 or 2 chapters and never mentioned again. Characters personalities are never looked at in depth.

The novel is fine if you like your stories simple and enjoy having action, consequences, and character development spelled out for you. Like clockwork, a new situation is alluded to in one chapter and executed in the next. There is always a simple solution to a complex problem in this little village.

However, the more demanding reader will find that the first paragraph is symptomatic of the overall novel -- misplaced commas, pronoun confusion, somewhat breezy description that adds nothing to the tone. Technically, the novel appears never to have been proofread. Plotwise, it reads as though the author followed a "tried-and-true" outline for writing a book which has an ensemble cast of characters. Unfortunately, none of the characters are truly compelling, the situations in which they find themselves are simplistic, and the resolutions are pat.

If you're looking for depth, don't look here. It's an easy day's read if you want to pass some time, but don't expect to discover anything new or to read any fresh insights into human nature.