Tue 14 Dec 2021
Reviewed by Barry Gardner: SUSAN HOLTZER – Curly Smoke.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[4] Comments
SUSAN HOLTZER – Curly Smoke. Anneke Haagen #2. St. Martin’s, hardcover, 1995; paperback, 1996.
I thought Susan Holtzer’s first book. Something to Kill For, was surprisingly good. I say “surprisingly” because most first novel’s aren’t, and because it was a good bit cozier in type than I usually read.
Anneke Haagen is moving into a rental cottage in Ann Arbor after a fire destroyed her home and all her belongings. The cottage is in .a small residential grouping located in the middle of commercial territory, and it’s in immediate danger of being demolished to make way for another development. The small group living there — which includes the prospective developer — are very much at odds over it all, and Anneke wonders what kind of people she’s landed among. Then on the night of a heavy snow a man is killed, and she knows — murderous.
[Holtzer] still hasn’t written the kind of book I usually like, and she still does a pretty damned good job of it. She has an easy prose style, and a very deft hand at characterization. I like [Anneke Haagen}, her computer consultant sleuth, and her ex-pro football player cop lover (yes, one of those; I told you I didn’t usually like this kind), and with an exception or two the cast of suspects is well done also.
The plot is fairly mundane and seemed the slightest bit contrived to me. I guess that very readable prose and very likable characters overcome a multitude of sins (not that there were that many), and I really liked the fact that Holtzer didn’t have her heroine charge into unnecessary danger and end the story with a burst of needless violence.
The Anneke Haagen series —
1. Something to Kill for (1994)
2. Curly Smoke (1995)
3. Bleeding Maize and Blue (1996)
4. Black Diamond (1997)
5. The Silly Season (1999)
6. The Wedding Game (2000)
7. Better Than Sex (2001)
December 14th, 2021 at 8:03 pm
I have no problem with cozies that give us reasonable crimes, with reasonable sleuths, and actual police work. They aren’t my preferred genre, but I can enjoy a well written one.
December 14th, 2021 at 8:20 pm
I read the first one of the series, and I think Barry was right. It was a cut above the usual run of cozies, then and now. What attracted me was the Ann Arbor setting, which is where I went to grad school, and in particular, a garage sale (or tag sale, as they call them in this part of the country). Going to tag sales was part of my Saturday morning routine for many many summers, when I wasn’t going to library sales.
December 15th, 2021 at 7:40 pm
I read and liked the first, same with 2nd, then wasn’t impressed by the third and quit, because…so many books etc.
December 15th, 2021 at 7:58 pm
We readers are very fickle, aren’t we? (Speaking for myself as well.)