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A review by eserafina42
The Bungalow Mystery by Annie Haynes
3.0
Entertaining enough, and kept me reading, but two things drag it down in my rating.
1) For some reason this seems to be a feature of the Golden Age mystery, but the women - at least the "good" ones, particularly the MC's love interest, always seem to be described in this over-the-top, over-romanticized way. "He could not tear himself away while she was there, though; it was absolute joy to know that she was present, to feast his eyes on the wealth of dark, bronze hair—bronze that the sun, kissing, turned to burnished copper; on the delicate pink and white of the half- averted cheek, to hear her pretty, caressing tones as she talked to Mary Ann." Not to mention snarky comments about women in general (always excepting the love interest, of course), even when the author is female. Needless to say, of course, the absolute worst thing you can say about a woman is that she is "masculine." About one of the "bad" women: "There was something in the glance of her big black eyes, a masculine strength about the modelling of chin and jaw, which he found almost repellent."
2) The coincidences - OMG, the coincidences!
1) For some reason this seems to be a feature of the Golden Age mystery, but the women - at least the "good" ones, particularly the MC's love interest, always seem to be described in this over-the-top, over-romanticized way. "He could not tear himself away while she was there, though; it was absolute joy to know that she was present, to feast his eyes on the wealth of dark, bronze hair—bronze that the sun, kissing, turned to burnished copper; on the delicate pink and white of the half- averted cheek, to hear her pretty, caressing tones as she talked to Mary Ann." Not to mention snarky comments about women in general (always excepting the love interest, of course), even when the author is female. Needless to say, of course, the absolute worst thing you can say about a woman is that she is "masculine." About one of the "bad" women: "There was something in the glance of her big black eyes, a masculine strength about the modelling of chin and jaw, which he found almost repellent."
2) The coincidences - OMG, the coincidences!