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3.1 AVERAGE
3.1 AVERAGE
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
emotional
informative
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
hopeful
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
A fantastic read. I enjoyed spotting some local haunts and the main character is fun. The depth of the science adds complexity and sent me down research rabbit holes.
Cosy mysteries are so far from my comfort zone we could be classified as sworn enemies. Which is not to say that some haven’t worked for this particular reader. But to be fair, those that have worked normally deploy a sly, dry sense of humour, a huge dollop of self-awareness and preferably have a hefty dose of tongue in cheek. It also doesn’t hurt to have a strong plot buried in the ancillary bits and pieces that seem to be part of the cosier side of the genre.
In the OLMEC OBITUARY there is a lot of ancillary - be it family background (harmonious racial blending with a hefty dose of Welsh and Asian sensibilities, philosophies, traditions and food), romantic longing (with our heroine Elizabeth Pimms cruelly dragged from the arms of her lover to return to Australia and hold this vast and diverse family together), and a major working life dilemma. Pimms would much prefer to be an archaeologist than working in a library, despite following in her father’s much revered footsteps. Somewhere in the middle of all the ancillary there is a 3,000-year-old skeleton and a suspect cause of death that eventually seems to have been resolved.
Relying heavily on the hanging around until things sort of fall into place style of investigation seems to fit perfectly with the personality of the protagonist Elizabeth Pimms. It’s not often that a debut author takes the sort of brave step that Owen has with this character. A victim of her family’s wants and needs, after being compelled to return to keep the wolves from the door (which home it seems is big and gorgeous and been in the family for years… that’s another one of those ancillary bits and pieces), Pimms is not best-pleased by this outcome. Having her react as a kind of victim is an interesting approach to take, and one that readers will undoubtedly have a strong reaction for - or against. Surrounding this seemingly constantly complaining and persnickety character with a cast of forced eccentrics makes the contrasts even stronger giving the reader a real opportunity of taking sides very firmly.
Given that the OLMEC OBITUARY is flagged as a very cold case mystery styled novel though, there did seem to be some major deficiencies with the plot, the reasons for which were less easy to fathom. Whilst there’s a lot of excavation through the ancillary layer required to find the plot, when elements were located, they all too often coincidental, under-developed or inexplicable. In the end, what aspirations for the likelihood of a complex past crime being unearthed, quickly dissipated into the hope of something interesting or educative. In the end that felt poorly served by the litany of unresolved threads and plot holes that felt like they would require more than a little digging to fill.
Having said all of that, my first line stands - cosy and this reader have a chequered and frequently turbulent history, so perhaps OLMEC OBITUARY is aiming to attract a considerably different readership.
http://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/review-olmec-obituary-ljm-owen
In the OLMEC OBITUARY there is a lot of ancillary - be it family background (harmonious racial blending with a hefty dose of Welsh and Asian sensibilities, philosophies, traditions and food), romantic longing (with our heroine Elizabeth Pimms cruelly dragged from the arms of her lover to return to Australia and hold this vast and diverse family together), and a major working life dilemma. Pimms would much prefer to be an archaeologist than working in a library, despite following in her father’s much revered footsteps. Somewhere in the middle of all the ancillary there is a 3,000-year-old skeleton and a suspect cause of death that eventually seems to have been resolved.
Relying heavily on the hanging around until things sort of fall into place style of investigation seems to fit perfectly with the personality of the protagonist Elizabeth Pimms. It’s not often that a debut author takes the sort of brave step that Owen has with this character. A victim of her family’s wants and needs, after being compelled to return to keep the wolves from the door (which home it seems is big and gorgeous and been in the family for years… that’s another one of those ancillary bits and pieces), Pimms is not best-pleased by this outcome. Having her react as a kind of victim is an interesting approach to take, and one that readers will undoubtedly have a strong reaction for - or against. Surrounding this seemingly constantly complaining and persnickety character with a cast of forced eccentrics makes the contrasts even stronger giving the reader a real opportunity of taking sides very firmly.
Given that the OLMEC OBITUARY is flagged as a very cold case mystery styled novel though, there did seem to be some major deficiencies with the plot, the reasons for which were less easy to fathom. Whilst there’s a lot of excavation through the ancillary layer required to find the plot, when elements were located, they all too often coincidental, under-developed or inexplicable. In the end, what aspirations for the likelihood of a complex past crime being unearthed, quickly dissipated into the hope of something interesting or educative. In the end that felt poorly served by the litany of unresolved threads and plot holes that felt like they would require more than a little digging to fill.
Having said all of that, my first line stands - cosy and this reader have a chequered and frequently turbulent history, so perhaps OLMEC OBITUARY is aiming to attract a considerably different readership.
http://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/review-olmec-obituary-ljm-owen
This is a hard pass for me - the writing is amateurish and stilted, the characters are one dimensional, and the lead, Elizabeth Pimm, needs a hard shake and a wake up call. I realize that to be annoyed by a fictional character is, hmmm... a waste of time? Unfruitful? Potentially ridiculous? But girl, seriously, SHUT UP. Also, this is peppered with phrases like "dratted younger sister" and "sharing those little moments of understanding". BOOOOOOO.
This is the book version of a Lifetime movie so, I guess if you're into that go for it?
I received an ecopy from the publishers and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This is the book version of a Lifetime movie so, I guess if you're into that go for it?
I received an ecopy from the publishers and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Interesting start to what I'm assuming will be an episodic series. The characters were very polarised, if they were good they were very very good, and if they were bad they were evil. I'd love to see a little more of the historic flashbacks, although the concluding chapter was explanatory enough. Another thing I found a little awkward was the dialogue (which could be related to my mild dislike of the characters expressing it). Other than that, a short and interesting read that left plenty of room for narrative and stylistic development throughout the series.
I received an arc from Netgalley in exchange for a review which in no way influenced my review. This book has a bit of problem genre wise as it's classified as mystery, and it is, after a fashion but many, if not most mystery readers pick up a book looking for murder (or at least theft or kidnapping). The mystery here, besides the point of view character's families love of Agatha Christie, is archaeological in nature: how did the people in the Olmec graveyard died and who and why helped to fake the findings (and you don't even know that part about the findings until over half way there.)
Elizabeth is a young archaeologist who has to give up her career to go back to Australia to help take care of her family which honestly are a bit of a weak point. We spend a lot of time with them but most of them aren't very fleshed out other than Taid (her Welsh grandfather). Elizabeth's father has died, and her mother died in a car crash years ago, an accident that she blames on her younger sister, Sam (who she considers a lazy drunk) and left their four year old (at the time) brother with damaged growth plates in his lower limbs requiring multiple, repeated surgeries for lengthening. Elizabeth is also multicultural as far as her heritage is concerned, Taid (Welsh), Grandmere (French Berber) and Nainai Cho (Chinese) and she speaks all three language (well four counting English).
Anyhow, Elizabeth is now a research librarian at the same library her father and grandfather worked at after less than a year of getting her degree (I'm not sure any of this would work as written. I asked research librarian friends who think not but none of us are Australian and I don't know if her archeology degree would count). Anyhow, she's miserable at the library except for Nathan one of her coworkers but she's missing archeology and her boyfriend, Luke who is at a dig, one she had to leave to come provide for her family. (I hoped to have more sympathy for her as I was forced out of a job I loved for one that while I'm good at, I'm not passionate about but she rubbed me the wrong way a bit, more with the Luke-inspired moping).
Elizabeth is contacted out of the blue by a former classmate, Juan who needs her help with an Olmec site in Mexico. His skills are more linguistic and hers bone. Even though there will be no pay, she's grateful for the chance (in spite of not liking Juan) to see these potentially royal men and the female ball player and to get her name on some archeology papers.
Quickly Elizabeth realizes something is wrong. There are no males among the skeletons found, no matter what type of grave goods they were buried with (i.e. male). She can't believe Juan was so wrong but maybe he was more interested in the inscriptions on the wall which may be the earliest Mesoamerican writing. However, when she tells Dr. Carl Schmidt who is overseeing Juan and the whole project that there are no males, he threatens to fire her if she doesn't say they're males.
Elizabeth has no plans of this but the next time she sees Carl, he's calm and brings in a grade student, Ann, who has a study going on with x-rays and DNA. She and Elizabeth hit it off, doing good work but Carl flip flops again, aggressively going after Elizabeth who won't lie and can't believe the paper he put out that was more guesswork than real science.
And that's where the mystery starts. Is the site a fake? If so, who did it? Throughout, we actually see the Olmec skeletons she's studying when they were alive. Honestly this added nothing to the story for me. I found it distracting.
It sounds like I didn't like this book and that isn't true. It's not bad. I was just hoping for more of a mystery or at least for Elizabeth to whine a little less.
Elizabeth is a young archaeologist who has to give up her career to go back to Australia to help take care of her family which honestly are a bit of a weak point. We spend a lot of time with them but most of them aren't very fleshed out other than Taid (her Welsh grandfather). Elizabeth's father has died, and her mother died in a car crash years ago, an accident that she blames on her younger sister, Sam (who she considers a lazy drunk) and left their four year old (at the time) brother with damaged growth plates in his lower limbs requiring multiple, repeated surgeries for lengthening. Elizabeth is also multicultural as far as her heritage is concerned, Taid (Welsh), Grandmere (French Berber) and Nainai Cho (Chinese) and she speaks all three language (well four counting English).
Anyhow, Elizabeth is now a research librarian at the same library her father and grandfather worked at after less than a year of getting her degree (I'm not sure any of this would work as written. I asked research librarian friends who think not but none of us are Australian and I don't know if her archeology degree would count). Anyhow, she's miserable at the library except for Nathan one of her coworkers but she's missing archeology and her boyfriend, Luke who is at a dig, one she had to leave to come provide for her family. (I hoped to have more sympathy for her as I was forced out of a job I loved for one that while I'm good at, I'm not passionate about but she rubbed me the wrong way a bit, more with the Luke-inspired moping).
Elizabeth is contacted out of the blue by a former classmate, Juan who needs her help with an Olmec site in Mexico. His skills are more linguistic and hers bone. Even though there will be no pay, she's grateful for the chance (in spite of not liking Juan) to see these potentially royal men and the female ball player and to get her name on some archeology papers.
Quickly Elizabeth realizes something is wrong. There are no males among the skeletons found, no matter what type of grave goods they were buried with (i.e. male). She can't believe Juan was so wrong but maybe he was more interested in the inscriptions on the wall which may be the earliest Mesoamerican writing. However, when she tells Dr. Carl Schmidt who is overseeing Juan and the whole project that there are no males, he threatens to fire her if she doesn't say they're males.
Elizabeth has no plans of this but the next time she sees Carl, he's calm and brings in a grade student, Ann, who has a study going on with x-rays and DNA. She and Elizabeth hit it off, doing good work but Carl flip flops again, aggressively going after Elizabeth who won't lie and can't believe the paper he put out that was more guesswork than real science.
And that's where the mystery starts. Is the site a fake? If so, who did it? Throughout, we actually see the Olmec skeletons she's studying when they were alive. Honestly this added nothing to the story for me. I found it distracting.
It sounds like I didn't like this book and that isn't true. It's not bad. I was just hoping for more of a mystery or at least for Elizabeth to whine a little less.
Elizabeth is finally working in her dream job as an archaeologist on a dig in Egypt when a family tragedy forces her to return to Canberra. While unhappily working at the National Library, she leaps at the chance to assist in the investigation of ancient skeletons found in a mass grave in the Mexican jungle. But all is not what it seems. This is the 1st in a series introducing Dr Elizabeth Pimms. Although sounding like a good read, I was disappointed as it just didn’t hit the mark for me. Very soap-operish & I didn’t connect with any of the characters.
The pace was a little too slow for me. I did appreciate the interesting archeology insights.