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The setting of THREE-DAY TOWN is classic Mr. & Mrs. North, and starts out quite similarly to the Lockridges' first novel: during a wild party at their apartment house, a nice couple quite literally fall over a dead body, meet up with a kindly police Lieutenant, explore the mostly-chic environs of NYC during difficult weather (for the Norths it was a heat wave, Knott is in NYC during a big snowstorm), and meet several odd - but interesting - New Yorkers. Readers get to follow the police as they attempt to solve the crime. For, despite the reputation the Mr. & Mrs. North series has gotten over the years (probably due to the TV show), the main crime solver in that series was Lt. Weigand of the NYC police, and most of the first (and many of the subsequent) novels mainly follow him and his squad as they work out the details of the crimes. And the pattern holds in this novel as well, to my delight - Lt. Sigrid Harald is center-stage about half the time, as the viewpoint shifts back and forth between Deborah and Sigrid, allowing us to see the crime and the solution from several points of view. It's nicely, and smoothly done, but Ms. Maron has had practice - it's the technique she perfected in the Harald series, using other viewpoints more and more with each book in the series. To my admittedly biased eyes, Deborah and her husband Dwight, in NYC on a belated honeymoon, seem rather bland and gently nice - but very quiet and laid-back; throughout most of the novel they're mainly foils for the tightly wound Sigrid, whose crisp no-nonsense attitude has long been one of my favorites in traditional mystery fiction. While the majority of the plot appears to be centered around the police investigation (as is also the case with the Lockridges' novels), Deborah and Dwight figure heavily in the denouement and final resolution of all the bits of the plot, with everything nicely woven together. I don't know if Deborah's "difficulties" at the end are usual for her in this long series, but her behavior and its resolutions are very similar to many that Mrs. North found herself in, including some extremely fem-jep behavior that I would have thought a pragmatic judge like Deborah might have had the sense to avoid. But the ending is entertaining, if predictable, and the solution albeit a bit confusing in spots, is complete and in its own way, quite satisfactory. Filled with lots of New York "types," a beautifully traditional mystery plot, a classic setting (the snowed-in, upscale apartment house filled with odd tenants, echoes Christie's snowed-in manor house, extremely likeable protagonists and good pacing, this addition to both of Maron's series is, to me, unexpectedly good, thoroughly entertaining, and beautifully written. It does start off rather slowly and somewhat stiltedly, as she carefully sets up the convoluted mystery situation in a bit too much detail. This wouldn't likely bother someone who hadn't just recently read the last book in the Harald series as I did, since it appears she has mainly written this novel with the assumption that it's her Deborah fans reading, and they might not be too familiar with Sigrid's past, so she repeats, almost word-for-word, some necessary detail from that last novel, to fill newer readers in, while not giving much in the way of back-story for Deborah. Sigrid is obviously not where Maron's heart is now, and this book mostly feels as though she wasn't all that thrilled to be revisiting her again. Deborah is written as being far warmer, much more likeable even to me, and although Sigrid is presented as far more easy-going than in her earlier novels, she's not likely to win over many Deborah fans - she's still prickly and a bit peculiar, traits that I enjoy, but mightn't be to all tastes. And I don't know how Deborah fans will take this book as it seems to me as though she isn't all that present here - we see very little of her, actually, just nice little snippets of her time with Dwight while they are on vacation, seeing sights and buying things, eating/drinking things (lots of food!). While the chapters themselves neatly alternate between Sigrid and Deborah, nearly all of Deborah's entries are similar in content, while Sigrid has a nice linear task in front of her - solve the murders and other skullduggery, and work-up a case with her squad, so that pacing seemed better. All-in-all, though, this was a nice blend of the two series, while also being a beautiful homage to classic mystery styles and sensibilities: a beautiful heroine and hero, an intelligent police lieutenant and friends, murder in a closed setting, and a plethora of possible suspects carefully delineated and presented for our perusal. Good stuff, if not the very best Ms. Maron has ever written. Bottom line: Not the best Deborah book, nor the best Sigrid, but an interesting, entertaining amalgamation of both. §Abbey Hamilton loves New England, her cats, yarn, and old-fashioned murder mysteries, and isn't shy about offering her opinions, usually at great length.
Reviewed by Abbey Hamilton, December 2011
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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