Park Lane South, Queens

Claire Breslinsky Mystery #1

by Mary Anne Kelly

Richmond Hill, Queens, is a small town 11 miles and light years away from Manhattan. When murder strikes, fear and suspicion threaten to tear apart the tranquil community in this stunning debut mystery--the first in a series--by a former fashion model. Martin's.

Genres: Mystery

233 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Mary Anne Kelly is a former model and lyricist who later turned to writing. Her acclaimed novels follow Claire Breslinsky, an acclaimed photographer from Queens, New York. Kelly also calls Queens home.

Reviews

[Chuck · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked up this book cause it was about a neighborhood not far from where I grew up in Jamaica. Was nice hearing them mention roads and streets I was familiar with but they talked more about that dog than about the actual murders. The ending was nice but gotta say this was disappointing.

[Deb · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first of a series of mysteries that takes place in and around the neighborhood I grew up in. There are plenty of references that let me place things correctly, and the book really does have the flavor of the neighborhood when I was growing up there (it's changed a lot since then, and now has one of the largest Sikh populations in the city).

It was a fairly quick listen, and the reader almost has a Queens accent, so the reading sounded familiar to my ears.

Will definitely be pursuing the other books in this series (I believe there are three more).

[Veronica Crain · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mystery -good read.

[Mary Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writer wrote beautiful descriptions of my childhood neighborhood and familiar characters. All in all , a good mystery!

[Neva · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book should have been a 5-star rating for me. It was a mystery, the protagonist was a professional photographer (and in her photos MIGHT be a clue), there was a great dog (who helped narrate the story), and there were policemen. What could go wrong?

I found myself often with a confused look on my face, frowning into the pages of my Kindle, while reading this story. It was a good story. I loved the characters. Kind of. What I saw and heard of them. The musings and dialogue of Claire sometimes felt like she was speaking a different language, that I recognized some of the words, but didn't quite understand or follow the meaning. Like maybe I missed something, or didn't have the whole story. It just didn't quite connect sometimes.

I still liked the book and will definitely read the subsequent books in this series. I see this book is #1 and there is a #0.5. The #0.5 sounds like an "Eat, Pray, Love" excursion. Claire kept referring to incidents in that previous life of hers. I will decide later if I want to read that one - probably not at this point, although I do have high hopes that the author improved her writing skills in later books.

[Regine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Exaggerated.