Ellen Hart recently was named a Grandmaster of the Mystery Writer’s Association, a very great honor awarded to her by her peers. She’s written 33 novels, 25 of which are the Jane Lawless mysteries. Jane was one of the first out lesbian detective series that shepherded me through my 30s.  Hers was not a a story of  struggling with being closeted, as was Katherine A Forrest’s Kate Delafield, but she was, like Kate, an accomplished adult woman, with a life and friends (and she just happened to be good at solving mysteries.)

I have a soft spot for lesbian mysteries. It was the first genre of lesbian fiction that I could stand to read. Although a remarkable number of the detectives had shitty relationships and drank too much, in the time honored way of detectives everywhere, these were the first lesbians I had ever seen in popular fiction who existed in my world as lesbians. So I was willing to overlook a bunch of tired tropes. Including shitty relationships and alcoholism. ^_^

The last few Jane Lawless books have been a little uneven. I liked The Grave Soul, which I reviewed here in 2015. The beginning was very strong, but it thinned out a bit as the plot wore on. I didn’t review Fever in the Dark because it was a fine beach read, but nothing to hold on to.  But here I am again, this time reviewing her newest Jane Lawless book, A Whisper of Bones, because it did some very good things and some really not-good things.

To begin with, Minneapolis is now firmly lodged in my mind as a hotbed of creepy family mysteries and murder.  Maybe it’s time to take Jane on the road or it might begin to  affect tourism. ^_^

One of the not-good things is that it is now almost wholly implausible that Jane can run a restaurant and be absent so often and for so long. In this novel she literally walks out during a wine tasting at her restaurant at which the vitner is the guest of honor. I find it hard to believe that this could continue more than a short while before it began to take a toll on the well-being of the restaurant.

Another weak point was Jane’s implied incipient alcoholism in the last two books has just disappeared. And, of course she has a shitty relationship. As horrible as it sounds, I was looking forward to the impending death of her shitty girlfriend, but no luck so far.

The final weak point is one of the characters that fans love best, Jane’s friend Cordelia. In 1990, Cordelia, a kind of femle Oscar Wilde, was a delight. In 2018, she’s a tad wearing. Luckily for this book, she’s also given a lighter, more human touch, which made her less a piece of ornate scenery and more of an actual character.

The good things all revolve around the mystery itself. Hart’s got a great talent at creating creepy, moody set pieces that work out completely differently than  a reader could possibly imagine. And it’s that talent makes this book enjoyable. The right people end up happily, the right people don’t and there’s a bonus “you could not possibly have known” thing that feels a bit like the cherry on top. 

Ratings:

Overall – 8

As a fun bit of winter reading without making me (or allowing me) to work too hard at it, A Whisper of Bones is  a good choice to enjoy some light reading about a lesbian private detective surrounded by death, disease and lies.

Thanks very much to the publishing company, St. Martin’ Press, for the review copy!