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ISABELLA MOON
by Laura Benedict
William Heinemann, February 2008
368 pages
12.99 GBP
ISBN: 0434017043


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

The novel begins prosaically enough, with Kate Russell sitting in the Carystown Sheriff's office. It quickly becomes apparent that Kate is not numbered amongst the boldest souls of the town, but what she has to report is certainly intimidating. She wishes to tell the Sheriff, Bill Delaney, where the body of Isabella Moon can be found, approximately two years after the girl's disappearance. Kate has been summoned from a dream by Isabella and led to a smelly area which she quickly realises is the location of the makeshift grave. Then, of course, Kate is faced with the long walk home again – proving reality is indeed upon her.

Lillian and Francie Cayley are Kate's closest friends in Carystown. They are black women and there seems to be some colour bar that prevents Francie acknowledging that she and Paxton Birkenshaw, the area's richest man, are lovers. Neither Lillian, Francie's mother, nor Frieda, Paxton's mother, would approve of the situation. The couple, however, has a hideaway where they can meet in secret.

Kate, or Mary Katie as she was known in her former life, has a lot to hide. She dribbles information to the reader about her reasons for moving to Carystown and, in the process, doesn't give a terribly good impression of her ability to choose men nor to run her own life.

Of course, there are other deaths and of course Kate is not restricted to the shade of Isabella Moon in her supernatural encounters.

The characterisations are not particularly strong in this outing. If I met Kate in real life, I would, at the risk of being subject to an assault charge, be tempted to give her a good shaking. Her friend Francie is not the boldest soul in the catalogue either – in this day and age would a young, strong-minded woman really consent to keeping a long-standing relationship under wraps because of her colour?

The characters who made the strongest impressions on me (apart from the violent baddies) were Francie's mother Lillian and Kate's boss Janet. Even so, I had reservations about Lillian. One of the more attractive characters in the novel is the sheriff, Bill Delaney. Perhaps it was because of him that it became necessary to introduce a theme that seems inescapable in this day and age: drugs.

The plot tended to stutter along rather slowly although the "I see dead people" theme, for all it has been done to death of recent years, is still enough to be interesting if well-handled. Despite my criticisms of the book, I think the author shows promise. One must bear in mind that it is, after all, a first novel.

Reviewed by Denise Pickles, January 2007

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