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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
An Overpopulated Mystery with Fascinating Family Dynamics, 1 Jun 2004
I was sorry that the talented Ms. Margaret Maron decided to make this book a mystery rather than a multigenerational family saga. The family part of the story is rich in many dimensions, including intrigue, emotion, improper behavior and a struggle for power. Perhaps the richest and most intriguing dimension is that a major family fortune rests on the slight imagination of one young child.We enter into the story as a member of the third generation, Ms. Amy Steadman, decides to flee to North Carolina to clean out the home in which her grandmother was recently murdered before agreeing to sell the property. It turns out that not all is smooth in Amy's life, despite her wealth. Amy is suspicious of her husband's lack of interest in her, dislikes her father's philandering, finds her siblings to be awkward to deal with, misses her Mom who committed suicide when Amy was small, and finds her myriad relatives to be confusing in their behavior. All of this takes a more sinister turn when Amy begins receiving threatening telephone calls . . . and finds herself in danger. What will this sheltered woman do to protect herself and her family? What dark secrets are being hidden? I found the mystery to have two serious drawbacks. First, this book is way overpopulated with characters who are in Amy's family. Thankfully, Ms. Maron provides a family tree in the beginning. But I couldn't seem to remember who was who because there are so many of them. Do you really want to keep track of 30 plus people in one family? I found most of them to be hard to distinguish in any way that added to the story. Second, the mystery itself is only marginally mysterious enough to require any thought. I found that the ending was telegraphed in way too many ways . . . and too much too long to develop. In fact, without all of the extraneous (to me) characters, this mystery would have not been difficult enough to be interesting. I hope that Ms. Maron will consider writing another book about Amy and her family that will not be a mystery. This family is too good to be lost in thinly veiled mysteries!
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