Miranda Warning (A Murder in the Mountains, #1) in Readers Sharing Reviews

Dec 02, 2017 Werner rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-crime-fiction, books-barb-owns

Note, June 30, 2018: I edited this just now, because I discovered I'd left the "I would recommend to..." box blank.

Although the author is a Goodreads friend of mine (and graciously autographed the book!), this series-opening contemporary mystery didn't come to me as a free review copy; I purchased it as a gift for my wife Barb, and it was one that she and I read together. My prior acquaintance with Gilbert's work was through her Vikings of the New World duology (she's an outstanding new voice in Note, June 30, 2018: I edited this just now, because I discovered I'd left the "I would recommend to..." box blank.

Although the author is a Goodreads friend of mine (and graciously autographed the book!), this series-opening contemporary mystery didn't come to me as a free review copy; I purchased it as a gift for my wife Barb, and it was one that she and I read together. My prior acquaintance with Gilbert's work was through her Vikings of the New World duology (she's an outstanding new voice in historical fiction). Barb's not a historical fiction fan, on the whole; but I thought this novel, having a West Virginia mountain setting much like the Virginia Appalachian milieu where she grew up and we currently live, and featuring a strong female main character, might appeal to her.

A West Virginia native (like her protagonist), Gilbert sets her novel in her own stamping grounds. The fictional small town of Buckneck is in west-central WV, near the Ohio River; the closest largish town is real-life Point Pleasant, which she describes with an assurance that suggests she genuinely knows the place. (At one point, she refers in passing to the 1774 battle there between the Virginia militia and the Shawnee Indians during Lord Dunmore's War, which had a resonance for me --that battle plays a significant part in Mary Schumann's Strife Before Dawn, which I read as a kid.) The rural country around Buckneck is home to the well-to-do Spencer clan, into which series sleuth Tess, now pregnant with her first child, has married. Like her fairly newly-fledged lawyer husband Thomas, she's college-educated, but she didn't grow up in affluence: she comes from a trailer park, with a father who abandoned her and her mother when she was small, and a mother who's in prison for drug dealing. She's not a professional detective; but she's observant, inquisitive, temperamentally inclined to suspect hidden meanings in statements and circumstances, and gifted with near photographic memory –all qualities that come in handy for investigation. And while she doesn't have a concealed carry permit, she does carry a spring knife (and sometimes packs a Glock anyway). Loyalty to a friend is deeply ingrained in her makeup. So when her elderly best friend, who's recently begun seeing a widowed gentleman caller, gets a note warning her off –written in the handwriting of the man's wife Rose, who was pronounced dead 40 years ago-- Tess takes it on herself to investigate.

Two narrations alternate here: Rose's, in italics and past tense, at the beginning of each chapter, and Tess' own, in present tense and normal script, in the main body of the text. (The reader actually gets the hang of this arrangement quickly.) The mystery is well-constructed and baffling, and very little is as it initially seems. Only one thing is sure –secrets have been concealed for decades, and they're ready to impact the present. Amateur snooping mixes with very well-evoked daily life in contemporary Appalachia, drawn with affection and sensitivity. The characters are absolutely real and life-like, even the minor ones. As a Christian author, Gilbert eschews objectionable language or lewd sexual content, but the religious content of the book is low-key, and more simply theistic than specifically Christian. The Spencers are a Christian family, but Tess herself, despite being exposed to church as a kid, starts off as a young woman who's not even entirely sure if she still believes in God. She's also not without a certain amount of emotional baggage from her formative years, and she's got a hot temper that's quick to take offense at times. She and Thomas love each other, but their marriage isn't without its fights and friction. IMO, these foibles tend to make her relateable to most readers, Christian and non-Christian. (She does have very strong pro-life views, which are expressed, in her thoughts, very forcefully at one point; so if that would horrify and offend you, this is your “trigger warning.”) Barb found the novel “dark” overall, and it certainly has dark elements; but she also found a good deal of comic relief in Tess' wry narrative voice, and frequently laughed out loud at some comments. (I didn't, but I enjoyed the leavening of humor.) At a thematic level, the storyline explores the relationship of mother and child in its various permutations; and there's going to be some character growth by the end, always a plus.

This is a series I definitely intend to follow –and hope to get caught up to date on sooner rather than later.! (There are, so far, two sequels.) ...more

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