About
Reviews
Search
Submit
Home

Mystery Books for Sale

[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]


  

EVANLY BODIES
by Rhys Bowen
St Martin's Minotaur, August 2006
256 pages
$23.95
ISBN: 0312349424


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Constable Evan Evans finds things more difficult at work then he expected. The department has hired a new Chief Constable who has decreed that there should always be a task force on hand regardless of the distance everyone must drive. Shortly after this announcement is made, a body is discovered.

The body of a university professor is discovered dead at the breakfast table. Evans finds himself on the first task force and is obligated to work this investigation. Inspector Bragg is also on the team. The Inspector is not an easy man to work with and has firm ideas of proper procedure.

As the Inspector also seems to take witnesses and facts at face value, Evans must help push the investigation in the correct direction. When another body is discovered to have been killed with the same gun, the investigation moves to another level as thing become much more complicated.

In addition to this murder investigation, Evans must deal with racial prejudice at home. A Pakistani family has arrived to run a small corner grocery shop. While having a grocery store is convenient, the cultural differences present a problem. The son, Rashid, is a religious zealot who refuses to accept Welsh customs. When Evans learns that the young daughter is being forced into an arranged marriage he worries about both the town and the girl. Then the girl disappears. Evans must remain involved in this investigation even though the murder inquiry is a priority.

EVANLY BODIES is the tenth book in the Evan Evans series. Like all of its predecessors, EVANLY BODIES is a small town cozy. While Evans has grown up throughout this series, he is still as solid source of justice mixed with a bit of child-like naivete. His steadfast nature makes this series comforting to come back to.

Not only has Evans slowly changed, this series has also slowly developed. The series is embracing and exploring some of the problems apparent in small isolated villages. In an expanding and developing world, villages are falling by the wayside as more and more people move to the cities.

This exodus results in new problems for the villagers. The village school has been closed so all of the children have to take the bus to the closest major town. The village does not have a grocery store so the elderly women must take the bus. All of these changes make it difficult for a village to be self-sufficient.

EVANLY BODIES takes this situation one step farther by having obvious foreigners move into a predominately Welsh community. The struggle the Khans have fitting into village life and the difficulties the villagers have accepting the Khans is a representation of the larger changes affecting the world. AS EVANLY BODIES is a cozy, this struggle is not as violent as it could be but this struggle is still evident. Rhys Bowen's willingness to include more worldly and dangerous topics is evidence of the series' sustainability.

Reviewed by Sarah Dudley, June 2006

[ Top ]


QUICK SEARCH:

 

Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]