Another testing pick from the bag produced a Z. After a bit of digging I came across The Messenger of Athens by Anne Zouroudi. This is the first in a series of mysteries featuring "detective" Hermes Diaktoros, who arrives on a remote Greek island to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of a young woman. The local police are, to put it mildly, irritated by this, as they have already cited this as an accidental death. But Hermes is not so sure and begins to stir up the population. He is a most unusual man - he appears to know things about everyone without ever having met them, or perhaps he is just incredibly intuitive? We follow Hermes as he travels around the island, interviewing a vast range of people and digging deep to find the truth. In a community where there are many secrets, it is hard for him to get people to open up, but he is nothing if not quietly persistent. There is a sprinkling of Poirot to the main character, but he is definitely his own man. There is a relaxed pace to this book and sometimes I wanted things to progress a little more quickly. But the pace is in keeping with island life, and gives the reader the opportunity to ponder and take their time to get to know the characters well - something I found hard at the beginning with some of the names sounding similar (in the audio edition) and the narrative switching between timeframes (we see the events leading up to the woman's death as well as the investigation itself). I would suggest this is a great holiday read - not too taxing, but with an interesting main character and setting.
My STAR rating: THREE.
Length: 288 print pages.
Price I paid: Free, borrowed from library as an audiobook.
Formats available: print, unabridged audiobook, ebook.
No comments:
Post a Comment