Review

When scrapbook shop owner Carmela Bertrand and her best friend, Ava Grieux, show up at St. Tristan’s church to drop off a poster, the last thing they’re expecting to see is a figure dressed as a monk bludgeoning their friend Byrle with a statue of St. Sebastian.  The pair rushes to Byrle’s aid, but she’s badly injured, and the woman’s life slips away before the ambulance can arrive.  Carmela and Ava are shaken by the incident, but when they learn the killer not only managed to flee the scene, but to abscond with a priceless antique crucifix, as well, they’re determined to do everything in their power to bring their friend’s killer to justice – even if that means they have to catch that killer themselves.

Skeleton Letters is the ninth of Laura Childs’ Scrapbooking Mysteries, and I’m sorry to say, it’s not her best book book.  I started it with relatively high hopes.  The backdrop – an ancient church tucked into a corner of the French Quarter in New Orleans – is creepy and mysterious.  And the setup has real promise, too; Childs often incorporates interesting bits of lore and legend into her tales, and when I found out this book features a monk clobbering a churchgoer with a statue of a saint and then stealing a crucifix, I couldn’t wait to see what she’d cooked up.  But by the time I got to the end of Childs’ tale, I found myself wondering why she bothered.  The mystery feels hastily assembled and incomplete, and the solution feels arbitrary, at best.  The pacing is slow, there’s not enough action, and the book lacks the strong sense of atmosphere that usually characterizes Childs’ work.  Add to all of that Childs’ propensity for florid prose, and you have a book that should have gone through another round of edits.

Her character development isn’t all that great, either.  Carmela’s a likable enough heroine, but she lacks depth, and while Ava’s certainly an entertaining sidekick, the random devout Catholicism she displays during this story doesn’t at all jibe with the character we’ve come to know over the course of the series.  The murder suspects Childs trots out are little more than cardboard cutouts.  And while Carmela’s “main squeeze”, Detective Edgar Babcock, is probably the least cartoonish of Childs’ cast, the chemistry between him and Carmela is practically non-existent.

Scrapbookers will no doubt be delighted by the wealth of tips, tricks, and project ideas Childs has worked into the book, but if you’re looking for a head-scratching whodunit, I suggest you look elsewhere.

Reviewed by Kat