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WINGS OVER THE WATCHER
by Priscilla Masters
Allison and Busby, December 2005
288 pages
18.99GBP
ISBN: 0749082127


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

I've always felt there's something faintly unsavoury about Priscilla Masters' Joanna Piercy novels. The leading character is unattractive, as are most of those around her, and the setting is bleak.

Ironically, the location -- Leek in the UK's Staffordshire Moorlands -- was one of the few aspects of WINGS OVER THE WATCHER that worked for me. Masters does a good job of building up a remote, chilly corner of the country where the residents do seem to be in their own world.

Joanna is mooning about like a wet weekend in the, erm, Staffordshire Moorlands. Her relationship with partner Matthew looks like it's on the rocks, and it's not helping that he's in America. So she's trying to cope alone with getting over a miscarriage.

The air of despondency affects her work, so she isn't overwhelmed with enthusiasm when accountant Arthur Pennington comes in to report his wife Beatrice missing. Joanna doesn't exactly pull out the stops to look for her, even though she knew the woman through the cycling club she belongs to, and had picked up some slightly odd vibes about Beatrice's life.

But when Beatrice's body is on the moors, Joanna starts to delve and finds that the seemingly respectable librarian had secrets and obsessions which no one close to her had guessed about.

In many ways WINGS OVER THE WATCHER reads like an early draft. Tenses slip, there are weird formatting glitches with gaps between sections where there really shouldn't be, and there's a great deal of tell and not a lot of show.

And this is problematic when it comes to the reader gaining any sympathy for or attachment to Joanna. She's a pretty flat character who really doesn't seem particularly pleasant. We're told her subordinates like her, but there's no clue as to why.

The characterisation isn't particularly successful elsewhere either. I did feel some attachment to Mike Korpanski, Joanna's sergeant, but the other cops fade into the background. And I think the dull accountant and librarian with a secret life has been visited once or twice in other books . . .

The book's prologue is weird and a total waste of time, and also gives away Masters' hand far too early, so there's little in the way of suspense. The ending is faintly preposterous, as if the author couldn't think of any other way to tie it all up. And I'm not quite sure what the title's in aid of. It sounds like one of those cheesy self-help books, or a bad romance novel!

WINGS OVER THE WATCHER is a swift and undemanding read, but not one where you'll need to lay siege to the bookshop.

Reviewed by Sharon Wheeler, November 2005

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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