Thursday, March 7, 2013

Irregardless of Murder

Author: Ellen Edwards Kennedy
Genre: Religous Fiction; Mystery

3 Stars
 
Amelia Prentice is a schoolteacher who happens to trip over the dead body of a former student one night in the library.  At first considered a suspect, she soon finds that there is more to the murder than what meets the eye.  What at first seemed like an accident is soon discovered to be a murder, and the list of suspects just keeps growing.
 
Well, the plot sounded good enough. A schoolteacher trips over the dead body of a former student. She is then a suspect in the murder.

It sounds harmless enough, and a decent mystery. Except: This is religious fiction (which, in my defense, I didn't know before I read the book because our local library only labeled it 'mystery', but that in itself does not mean I wouldn't have read the book anyway, but that my expectations would certainly have been different).    


Please don't get me wrong; I've read religious fiction before and may do so again, if the plot sounds interesting.  It is just religious fiction masked as a mystery that I have problem with (and this is only my own opinion, so I hope no one will take offense by what I am going to say).

The only problem I have with it - and I have read several religious mysteries so I am not basing it on this one book - is that you know the protagonist could step into an army of scorpions and nothing would happen to them, all because of their strong belief in God.

And you also know that by the end of the story, everything, including all the subplots (of which this story had their share), would be tied up in pretty little ribbons and the 'good Christians' would live happily ever after.  There's even a professor who goes around humming all the time - and they're all hymns.  No one I know goes around humming hymns.

The mystery was decent, but could have been better if Amelia had depended on her own wits to save her instead of her belief in God, which I think any logical person would do.
 

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