|
[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
Joan Hess is best known for her two series, both set in small-town Arkansas. The first series stars Claire Malloy, a bookshop owner, who lives in Farberville Arkansas and has the most annoying teenaged daughter in the world, and the second series, set in Maggody, Arkansas, has police chief Arly Hanks dealing with crime and a group of inbred locals, who almost, but not quite, go over the edge of parody. The tales in THE DEADLY ACKEE show that Hess is not just a pretty face on the crime fiction horizon. The short stories in this collection mostly have a very dark side, which usually doesn't show in the books in the series. In Caveat Emptor a shady real estate dealer gets more than he bargained for when he sells a lemon to a single mother. A writer in A Little More Research is being bothered by a guest who invited herself over. She becomes part of the solution. A teacher, who is being honored and whose husband is always late, gives him a lesson he will never forget (nor will the town) in Maggody Files: Time Will Tell. All's Well that Ends tells the gothic tale of the revenge of the discarded girlfriend, with an autistic child, on a basketball player who is acquitted of killing his wife. The title and final tale in the book is a short novel, the second and last Theo Bloom story. Theo is a retired florist who can never say no to his sister Nadine Caldicott. This time, she wants him to chaperone a mixed party of six spoiled brats from Connecticut to Jamaica for spring break. Theo gives in. He can never withstand his sister's verbal battering, and resignedly flies to the tropics, hoping to be able to study the flora while the youngsters go about their business of enjoying themselves. But he overhears something from the villa next door, and then an old CIA acquaintance shows up. Needless to say, Theo does not have the quiet week he envisioned. For a different view of Joan Hess' abilities as a storyteller, run, don't walk to buy THE DEADLY ACKEE. I rarely read short stories but these are exceptional.
Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, February 2004
[ Top ]
QUICK SEARCH:
Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]
| 
