I love cozy mysteries. My perfect idea of a 'rainy day read' is a small-town mystery with an intelligent, humorous and loving amateur sleuth, preferably female. I stumbled upon Never Buried by Edie Claire while looking for an entertaining book that was available online for free. The reviews on goodreads.com seemed positive, and I decided to give this a shot. I was certainly not disappointed. The story is simple, if slightly bizarre. Leigh Koslow, a talented copywriter, lives with her cousin Cara, a successful designer who is married and pregnant with her first baby. Koslow finds an embalmed dead body in a hammock in their back yard, and promptly informs Maura Polanski, her college-friend who is now a cop with the Avalon Police Department. So begins a cat-and-mouse game that has its origin fifty years ago, in 1949, when couple of scandalous deaths in the same home rocked the town. Add to this a child who went missing fifty years ago, Maura's mom suffering from Alzheimers, a cat, a set of finches and other interesting characters, and you have got an engaging novel, albeit with an unconvincing plot. What Works: The CharactersIt is very important for me to like the characters in order to remain motivated to finish the book. Thankfully, this novel abounds with realistic and relatable characters, each with their own personality. They are not mere caricatures, but lively and vivacious people who steal your heart instantly. They are REAL. Leigh Koslow, the protagonist,is funny, smart and caring, nosy, suspicious and clumsily brave! Cara is fearless and loving, while Maura is dignified and strong. Even the side characters, such as Cara's neighbor Mrs Rhodis and Leigh's mom, are unique and inspire laughs. What Doesn't Work: The plotThe premise of the novel - a dead body resurfacing after ten years - was certainly intriguing. But the momentum fizzled halfway through, and the various attempts to catch the infiltrator got tedious. Of course, thanks to my experience with such mysteries, I could spot the 'killer' within the first three chapters. But, like someone else mentioned in their review, the ending was a killjoy in that the 'bad guy' was extremely weak and the motive was completely unconvincing. Overall, I am definitely looking forward to reading this entire series just to spend time and enjoy with Claire's fun characters :)
I received a free kindle copy of Never Buried: A Leigh Koslow Mystery by Edie Claire published by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform in exchange for fair review. I gave it five stars. It had enough twists & turns to hold my interest & is a very fast read.Edie Claire is the author of the Leigh Koslow Mystery Series. This is the only one I have read but I'll look for more. There is plenty of mystery involved in the telling of this story. Leigh & her cat Mao-Tse are staying with her pregnant friend Cara whose husband is completing a business deal in Japan. An embalmed corpse mysteriously is deposited in the hammock in the back yard. Threatening messages appear. While I had not read any previous Leigh Koslow books, there are enough clues to discern certain trends. Leigh loses her apartment & job, again! Mom wants Leigh to move home, again. Leigh would rather face death threats than do so.There are a lot of strong women characters in this book & I liked that a lot. There are also the enter-twined bonds of daughters & mothers. Maura, Leigh & Cara all have close relationships with each other as their mothers do with each other. The closeness-interdependence of all six women is a haunting refrain throughout this mystery. This who-done-it was a page turner. Any book that can make me miss sleep well deserves the five stars I give it.Where had the killer kept the embalmed corpse for so many years? Can Leigh & Cara discover who is the killer before they are written out of the story? Will Mao Tse survive the anxiety of the moves?Link to purchase: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1477...
What do You think about Never Buried (1999)?
This is the first in a series by Edie Clare, and like many other people I downloaded it because it was free. I’ve now read four more in the series, and they just keep on getting better! In Leigh Koslow, Clare has created a character with enough flaws to sustain a series, but enough great qualities to make the reader love and root for her. This is my kind of novel – mystery, suspense, intrigue, but not gory or gratuitous. Brilliantly written too. The only thing I didn’t like was the sudden switch in viewpoint right at the end – but that’s just a personal preference, and doesn’t stop this being an excellent read. In later books, Clare hasn’t made this narrative error again, so I’m still giving it 5 out of 5 stars.
—Joanne
Charmingly different, constantly moving.Really rather enjoyed this book. Light but somewhat serious. Small-ish town life.Keeps you guessing: if really good you pick the really "bad guy" out before mid-book, but you still may not really get the whole story!!Aside: As with all the books I have thus far read, I really do wish that proof reading and editng were done more conscientiously. Not only do I find this annoying, but character references are often not accurate, or clothing from minute to minute can be different...oddly while driving. Just an observation, Albeit, annoying.
—Toni Spalding
Leigh has moved in with her pregnant cousin Cara while Cara’s husband is away on business. She’s having braxton hicks and someone has to stay with her.On the first night she is there, she gets disturbed in the middle of the night and in trying to find light switches, turns on the outdoor lights and sees a figure in the yard. In the morning, when she goes to check it out there is a body in the hammock.They call their friend Maura, the policewoman who tells them the body isn’t a recent victim; its been embalmed. And then they find a note that says ‘get out of my house’. But the house has been empty for years before Cara and Gil renovated it and the previous resident died of old age long ago.In a new twist; the body is his. Paul Fischer and he was ‘never buried’.The more Leigh digs, the more she finds. And the big news is that there have been deaths in this house before; way before, back in 1949.***Okay… I checked and this is 1999 era. Neat.Wow… the threatener just left a message written on fish. So you have to find them all, hope the gulls or crows haven’t carried any away and then play anagrams to work out what the heck they are saying. It says Ottegu… no… uttego… no. When I solved it, I’d be happy, not frightened. Yeah… it says ‘get out’! Woot.Snorts.If the house has been empty for ten years, why is the person threatening them now? Have they been away for 10 years? Frowns.Poor Leigh has lost her copy writing job and does NOT want to move back in with her parents. I hear ya, girl.This one actually snuck up on me. It is a cosy mystery so it’s not going to be world changing. But I read it all and I quite liked Leigh.All of the women characters where great. And Leigh was determined; she took a few shortcuts but they always do in this genre. She’s a pet lover, desperate and dateless at 29 (Cara always stole all her boyfriends, and even married one) and she loves her cousin and gets on well with her. It is the two of them that really solve it all.Although the ending was a little… stretched, I bought it. (view spoiler)[ Not so sure that the missing boy would never be found, or blamed for the murders. (hide spoiler)]
—A.M.
