Customer Reviews

The Tarnished Eye

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

You hear (or read) the name "Judith Guest" and you think ORDINARY PEOPLE. And that creates ... expectations. About the last thing you expect is a mystery. One can sympathize with Guest's publicist, who must spend time in equal shares explaining what THE TARNISHED EYE, Guest's newest book, is and is not. The best place to begin for our purposes would be to state that it is not a disappointment; it is indeed very, very good.

Guest's prose is spare, which is not to say it's simple. She simply does not waste words, and uses them well. Her narration --- here she uses the third person present --- compels and commands reading; there is no way to put down THE TARNISHED EYE once you have begun reading.

Guest's tale is based on two true-life crimes that occurred in Michigan in the 1960s. One of them --- the brutal murder of a family of six in northern Michigan --- abruptly intrudes into the life of Hugh DeWitt, the Sheriff of otherwise idyllic Blessed, Michigan. DeWitt, still grieving over the loss of his infant son years before, is emotionally ill-prepared to investigate the carnage that he finds at the summer home of the wealthy Norbois family from Ann Arbor.

DeWitt nonetheless doggedly investigates the matter, and soon finds that suspects abound. Paige Norbois was having an affair, while her husband Edward had discovered that his business partner was embezzling from the company. One of their sons had a confrontation with a couple of ne'er-do-wells from the town on the night of the murders, and a local handyman is caught absconding with evidence at the scene of the crime.

DeWitt's investigation takes him to Ann Arbor, which is awash in terror, thanks to the serial murders of four young women. DeWitt is troubled by some of the similarities between the Ann Arbor murders and the Norbois killings. When Norbois's business partner commits suicide, it appears that DeWitt's investigation has come to a close. It is in fact, however, only beginning. DeWitt's plodding but methodical investigative style is extremely effective. He never draws his gun, or even raises his hand in anger throughout the course of THE TARNISHED EYE. Indeed, all of the violent acts giving impetus to the investigations take place off of the page, but the overriding impression is that DeWitt is a force to be reckoned with, a man who should not be underestimated.

Guest is not a prolific author, but what she perhaps lacks in quantity she makes up for in quality. THE TARNISHED EYE, as with all of her work, has been worth waiting for and will hopefully expose her to a new and wider audience.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

Guest's book transcends the standard thriller/whodunit...thankfully it did not have a some stupid action scene or the usual scene where the cops explain the entire "whys" of the crime. One of the cool things about this book is that Guest never fully explains the whys of the murders. The whodunit is not completely impossible to figure, but as you read it, you might well be surprised along the way. The characters are people you are care about (however Karen might be a bit too perfect) and Hugh is wonderful. It reads fast, but not because it lightweight. It is welcome addition to the genre and well worth your time.

Though simply written, this was a novel I couldn't put down. The slower character development in the beginning pays off when the pace picks up mid-novel and never stops. There are plenty of small twists to the plot and every character gets their due. I think the strength of this novel set in Northern Michigan is that it is underwritten. You read on to get more...more sense of the victims, more sense of the community, more sense of the killer. The characters were so real I still find myself thinking about them. Reading this story makes me want to go into the archives and read about the true murders that this story was based on. A VERY intriguing read.

I had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Guest at a book signing last fall. In attendance were fourteen of her sorority sisters from her college days. What a special night it was for them. The overall turnout was excellent, and the audience appreciated Ms. Guest's comments, her discussion of the real stories behind this novel, her revelation of some of her own life issues, and her thought processes behind certain fictional characters in this book, particularly that of the depressive Sheriff Hugh DeWitt. DeWitt has a difficult time seeing the positive side of anything. That does not change during the course of the story.

Ms. Guest's writing is easygoing and fluid. The book is made up of short, fast-moving chapters. The concept is a little different than the usual mystery novel as Guest includes chapters about the Norbois victims at the time they were alive. Each member of the family has his/her own chapter.

Being from Petoskey, Michigan, and very much aware of the Robison murders (Norbois) and a student at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Michigan, during the time of John Norman Collins, I was interested in reading this book from the instant I first heard about it (one of Collins's victims was murdered two blocks from where we lived on campus). When you've been there, a story based on real events looks very different to you than to someone who knows nothing about these events. The Robison murders have never been solved. John Norman Collins remains in prison.

Judith Guest shared with us some of the fears she had about writing this story while the possibility exists that the Robison killer is still out there somewhere (even though she believes there's a connection between the Norbois murders and JNC). She also talked about some of the people still very interested in solving this horrendous crime. Hopefully, this fictionalized version of the real story will lead to that end. A good read.

Carolyn Rowe Hill

I liked the story but found the way it was put together a little odd. I'm speaking of the chapters about each member of the Norbois family that the author describes. I just could never quite get into them. I didn't feel a lot of sympathy for them. I did like the fact that it was an easy, quick read and have found the horror of the event, which supposedly was based on a real story, has stuck with with me. For this reason alone, I give the book high marks.

Judith Guest, most celebrated for her classic novel, "Ordinary People," has written a new suspense novel. The protagonist of "The Tarnished Eye" is Sheriff Hugh DeWitt, who lives in Blessed, Michigan, with his wife and young daughter. He is grief-stricken over the sudden death of his infant son, and he and his wife are trying to keep their shaky marriage going. Two other people struggling with marital problems are a wealthy couple, Paige and Edward Norbois, who have an elaborate summer home in Blessed. Edward is a stern and inflexible husband and father. Family disharmony mars what should be an idyllic vacation for Paige, Edward, and their four children.

Suddenly, a gruesome multiple homicide shocks the citizens of Blessed, and Sheriff DeWitt is under pressure to make a quick arrest. With few resources at his disposal, Dewitt has to secure the crime scene, interview witnesses, and keep the media frenzy under control. One of his prime objectives is to find out if the murderer is a random psychopath or someone who had a reason to target these particular victims.

Judith Guest has written a compelling whodunit with wonderful Michigan ambiance, engrossing characters, and plenty of suspense and red herrings to keep the reader off balance. Sheriff DeWitt is an intelligent and compassionate man who is anxious to bring justice to the victims. Unfortunately, he is too tied to the past to pay close attention to his wife's and even his own pressing emotional needs. "The Tarnished Eye" is an exciting and involving murder mystery in which Judith Guest astutely explores the dark and complex recesses of the human mind.

A real-life crime serves as the foundation for Guests' powerful novel, set in northern Michigan where a grieving sheriff obsessed with the past finds unusual attraction to the case of a family's murder. His investigations into the murders will change his own life and faltering family situation, making Tarnished Eye a compelling read.

Minnesota author Judith Guest hasn't written a lot of fiction. Her first, ORDINARY PEOPLE, an acclaimed and best-selling debut, was transformed into a popular, award-winning motion picture. Now we have only her fourth book. She may not write fast, but she certainly writes well.

THE TARNISHED EYE is variously described as a novel of suspense and it is that; as a fine police procedural, and it is that, too. It is also a finely conceived observation of human dynamics. It is not a long novel. Guest's spare, precise style lends itself to this kind of page-turning story with its careful, nuanced prose, multi-layered characters and intricate human dynamics. Yet a reader is not drawn to rush pell-mell through the action. Rather, one settles in, appreciating the language, the individual scenes, the thoughtful, careful way in which Guest hovers over the characters, examining, illuminating, observing even minor characters. "The driver of the yellow Link-belt Tractor is waiting on the road. `What a bitch, gettin' up that hill!' he shouts. Stu turns to snap a picture of the rig." A few words that tell us a great deal about two minor players.

THE TARNISHED EYE has its roots in a still unsolved multiple-murder that took place in Michigan many years ago. The novel follows the sheriff of Blessed, Michigan, Hugh DeWitt, who is still struggling to cope with the death of his infant son three years earlier. His wife, Karen, who has coped better with the tragedy of SIDS, now struggles to support her husband and her marriage.

DeWitt is faced with a multiple homicide. An entire family has been wiped out in their expensive, almost palatial, nearby vacation home. Perhaps this is the final; crushing blow for Sheriff DeWitt, an experienced, dedicated, rural sheriff who is beginning to believe hope for the human race is a lost cause. Written in present tense with multiple points of view, the novel is a masterpiece of structure. What happens next is a finely wrought example of good, careful police work, putting Guest in league with author Michael Dymmoch.

Steadily, carefully, coping with a media frenzy, unhelpful fellow law enforcement agency colleagues, and a host of odd and wonderful idiosyncratic minor characters, DeWitt and his small agency gradually put the pieces together, working against the possibility that the killer may have other targets, until they arrive at a final, surprising, solution. This is an eminently satisfying and wonderful novel.

This is the first book by Judith Guest that I have read but I'll now try to get her most famous one, Ordinary People, as well as several others written by her. A wealthy but reclusive family, parents, three sons and a daughter, has been brutally slaughtered in their summer home in northern Michigan, with curtains closed and doors locked, so that their bodies are not discovered for several weeks. The scene is one of unbelievable carnage, with the mother and little girl raped as well as murdered. Sheriff Hugh deWitt is the towns' second generation police chief, a conscientious but depressed man who has never fully recovered from the SIDS death of his son and who is not mentally prepared to confront the horror of this situation. M/s Guest's writing style is fluid but not flowery and her use of short, sharp chapters helps the flow of the story, making it a smooth, quick read. She uses a number of red herrings in the form of locals with agendas which tie them into the crime scene and throws in a few local characters for slight comic relief, admitting that she based this book on a true story which happened two decades previously and is unsolved to this day. I'd unhesitatingly recommend the work of Judith Guest to any reader of this genre.

I, too, read the reviews here and got this book expecting a good read. I am totally in agreement with the review who said that this author does not have the talent for good, gripping, complex but accessible, intelligent mystery writing. It's okay. Just okay.

The ending was, in my opinion, just tacked on, not hinted at or built up to in any way that made all the pieces fit together with a fine "ah ha!" It was as if she wrote the book to have a "surprise ending" by creating one false suspect after another, then just assigning an unlikely person the role of villian without creating the character so that it made sense in a satisfying way.

I gave it three stars, because I did read the whole thing, but I would not recommend it to anyone.