Customer Reviews

Widows Club

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

 

 

I really liked this book. At first, I thought it wasn't going to be as good as The Thin Woman, but once I got into it, my interest was held completely. The wedding and honeymoon were very funny and Ben's parents were, for lack of a better word, interesting. All of this, combined with the Tramwell sisters getting Ellie involved in solving the murders, made for a fun read.

You have to read this, if just for the hilarious wedding of our dearly beloved couple from The Thin Woman: Bentley T Haskell and Ellie Simons! This book is so many laughs and the Tramwell sisters from Down the Garden Path show up in their roles as FLowers Detection Agency. The murderer was a real surprise and the clues were clever, but as always it is the sheer delight of the characters that make up the heart of the story. It's a real joy to read, so treat yourself to it!

I am new to Dorothy Cannell's books, but I was delighted with the Widows Club. The plot is great-a group of proper English women, "sisters in sorrow", who have found discreet ways of "retiring" their problem husbands, rather than divorce, which would not be as lucrative. I especially enjoy the two elderly detectives, Miss Hyacinth and Miss Primrose. I would like to see more of them. The heroine, Ellie Haskell is a lovable character, newly married and newly thin. Her home, Merlin Court,seems full of eccentric characters, such as her irresponsible cousin and her inlaws with their marriage problems. Ellie must also save her husband from the sinister widows. Some of the plot seems very farfetched, but fun. This reminds me of a British version of the Charlotte McLeod books. Read this with a cup of English tea,of course. Not to be taken seriously.

Everything about this book looked interesting to me. The dialogue just gets too bogged down to keep going. There were several pages of the bride and groom in the car trying to get to their own reception. Move it along! Ellie's meandering thoughts were tiresome and after reading more than halfway through the book, I skipped to the end. I never do that, but I couldn't take anymore.

This turned out to be a fairly compelling mystery, after a slow beginning. I did have trouble tracking the many peripheral characters, even with their odd names and quirky attributes, but the obsessive passions of the protagonist, Ellie Haskell, drive this amusing mystery about a murdering club whose purpose is to create widows. By the second half of the book, the question of who the founder and leader of the widow's club was, distracted me from the character confusion and in the last third, the climax was compelling enough to remind me of what I like about Dorothy Cannell. While not my favorite of her books, she remains, for me, a master of the English cozy.

The Widow's Club itself is a very interesting and unique plot idea. The most interesting part of the book was learning about how the Widow's Club worked, the exact arrangements, etc. The rest of the book was fairly slow and I found myself skimming and just plain skipping a lot of it that was repetitive. I hated the frequenty Ellie whining about "what if Ben finds out" -- when it comes to Ben she is so wimpy and illogical and it is plain boring and disappointing to read those parts.

Love this book! The humor is so subtle and facetious -- the very thought of a bunch of women discussing flower arrangements in the same tone where they discuss murdering off each other's philandering husbands is priceless. And new bride Ellie is caught up in the middle of it all. Very richly plotted with great depth to the whole story. Love the adventure. A highly intelligent book that you'll want to savor.

Does Agatha Christy bore you to tears? Do British Mysteries make you constipated? Well, drop what you're doing and if you like clever witty mystery's mixed with British wit and humor, you'll love this book! You will hopefully never encounter a grief support group anything like the "Sisters in Sorrow" but you may find amusement in considering the possibilities! Especially if your spouse gets on your nerves a bit.

This, the book that started the Ellie Haskel series is highly recommended by this reader and like me you will no doubt crave to read more of Ms. Cannell. I recommend that you buy this paperback and at least the next two in the series as you won't be able to wait for the postman to bring the next one once you've finished this one.

since I loved her first one, The Thin Woman. I jumped into The Widow's Club with two feet and found that it was disjointed and plain boring. The plot had potential, but Ms. Cannell rambled on at such length that I found myself skimming pages and wondering when it would be over. I was disappointed in this book. Only the last ten pages were at all worth my time, but that may have been simply because I saw a light at the end of the tunnel.

At first, the book's premise is interesting: women banding together to do in errant spouses. However, it quickly becomes boring as the plot seems to meander and the same type of wit is used over and over. The characters are too one-dimensional to be of much interest.