Kemper Donovan. The Busy Body. USA: John Scognamiglio Books/Kensington Publishing, 2024.
Loved this book! So easy to read, the conversational style very engaging. Our unnamed narrator is a biographer ‒ a ghostwriter if you will ‒ thrilled to be hired by Dorothy Gibson, who recently lost the three-way election race for president of the USA. A real character, Dorothy is outspoken in public and reserved in private. She has security agents for protection, a congenial personal assistant (Leila), and assorted staff in her backwoods Maine estate, where she's retreated to lick her wounds, so to speak. Her son Peter appears from time to time, earning his mom's sarcasm as an unemployed slacker. Biographer and subject click immediately. So it's not surprising that Dorothy chooses her as a sidekick when she decides to investigate the death of her neighbour: Vivian Davis had high society pretensions, among many activities, promoting the career of her husband, Dr Walter Vogel.
But someone drowned Vivian in her bathtub in the middle of the night. At first it was thought to be suicide. Motive is a mystery, as is the perpetrator. In the household at the time were hubby Walter, Viv's very southern-belle sister Laura, old friend Paul, Walter's personal assistant Eve, and the Shah family. The latter are guests for the express purpose of convincing Dr Samir Shah to fund Walter's scientific dermatology-related invention. Samir's wife Anne and teenage son Alex complete the company. After a memorial for Vivian, Dorothy interviews them one by one, to the fury of police detective Locust. Narrator can barely keep up with her pace, including a propensity for martinis that produce a head-splitting hangover and a seduction attempt with Denny, one of the bodyguards. Not in that order. Actually, who is dallying with whom is full of surprises. That everyone points to someone else as the murderer is no surprise.
Next up, another body hits the floor. Just to keep things ever at the boil, Dorothy finds Walter's vindictive first wife Minna, mother of his son Robert. But the head-spinning climax and denouement will stop you in your tracks. Dorothy and her biographer are an impressive team. It's a real treat, this.
Bits
▪ You can call me a ghostwriter, though usually I just say I "freelance," which is vague and boring enough to put an end to strangers' polite inquiries. (3)
▪ The Bodyguard led me down a cool, dark hallway. (I did my best not to stare at his backside, but sometimes our best just isn't good enough.) (27)
▪ It wasn't the work she [Dorothy] loved; it was doing the work, and I felt a kinship with her because it's the exact same procedural fascination that keeps me going as a writer. (34)
▪ Her ponytail was too high for a grown woman—unless she [Anne] was about to compete in an adult cheerleading competition later that day. (99)
▪ "So I guess I'd say that even though I have no idea why anyone'd want to kill her, I'm not surprised someone did." (141)
▪ "Are you suggesting Alex Shah killed your wife because he had some kind of fascination with her?" (156)
▪ "Never could trust a woman named Eve," she muttered, sinking down a little. "Don't you tell anyone I said that," she added. (176)
▪ It was almost 11 p.m. when I woke up. The good news: I was not hungover. The bad news: I was still drunk. (200)
▪ This appalling mother/son duo had been on or at least near the scene when both murders were committed. Surely that couldn't be a coincidence? (243)
▪ "I've barely seen her [Laura] this whole time. She's always lying around in her room, forcing me to leave trays outside her door like this is a Four Seasons or something." (255)
Nathan Dylan Goodwin. The Deserter's Tale. nathandylangoodwin.com, 2023.
Morton's daughter Grace is almost six years old! Time flies by, even in fiction where British genetic genealogist Morton Farrier evolved from single man to married father of two. His solid fan following has been with Morton through fascinating client research cases to unexpected revelations in his own family history. This latest is a novella, the tenth book in the series! Goodwin cleverly assimilates some of his own experiences into Morton's first visit to Salt Lake City and RootsTech, the annual supernova of all genealogy conferences. As if Goodwin had not created an absorbing character and plot series, he's done it twice. His Venator series revolves around an investigative genetic genealogy company based in Salt Lake City, founded by Madison Scott-Barnhart. In The Deserter's Tale, Morton and his former lover Maddie are about to meet for the first time in twenty-six years.
Morton has been invited to give a presentation at the conference, as well as share a panel discussion with some peers. In fact, he appears ill-prepared for both by the time he arrives, jet-lagged, in America. So I ask why his scenes at home seemed often spent at the kitchen table instead of in his office. With a child assaulting his eardrums on one hand and his mother-in-law Margot prattling on the other; that didn't sound like our diligent Morton. Yet he pulls it together to give a professional talk. Imagine his discomfort then finding himself sitting next to Maddie during the panel presentations—considering (a) she had walked out and left him so many years ago without explanation, and (b) he'd failed to alert wife Juliette in advance, who will now be watching the live-streamed panel. Awkward. But professionalism wins again. The panel presentations on DNA-related discoveries, summarized by Morton, sound incredibly fascinating. I wish I'd been there.
We fully expect that Morton will use this visit to Salt Lake City to find answers to the mystery of Juliette's great-grandfather, Charles Hughes, from meagre clues dredged up by Margot. Thanks to his forensic genealogy expertise, locating distant relatives, and burrowing into local history, he makes real progress. Brief time in Las Vegas is also the opportunity to accomplish an errand on behalf of his grandfather's reputation. Entertaining and well-researched as always, but Goodwin saves the real kicker for the end. No spoilers here, although Morton Farrier Number Eleven is surely in the works.
Goodwin has gone from strength to strength in his craft with savvy marketing on social media: more power to him! You can browse and order all the goodies at nathandylangoodwin.com.
Bits
▪ Something had definitely prevented him from telling her that Maddie would be one of his co-panellists. Was he sparing her feelings? Staving off a potential argument? (11)
▪ The reality, however, was that he was feeling incredibly overwhelmed by the vastness of the building, the volume of people and the sheer scale of the event itself. The thought of delivering his talk was terrifying him. (54)
▪ The part that struck Morton the most was Charles' insistence that the devil had been behind his decision to abandon his wife and children and the root cause of all the bad things to which he had confessed in his letter. (62)
▪ "Good afternoon, everyone," he started, clicking his first slide. "Candee-Lee Gaddy, a twenty-three year old prostitute from Reno was brutally murdered in December 1980." (67)
▪ "We're trying to make investigative genetic genealogy more rigorous and disciplined over here," Maddie said. "That kind of thing would not go down at all well amidst the arguments that the industry is totally unregulated." (73)
▪ "I expect our paths will cross from time to time now that you're on the international stage," Maddie said with a grin. (84)
▪ Charles Hughes was certainly an ancestor whose backstory just kept on giving. On top of his many misdemeanours, Morton could now add bootlegging during prohibition to the list. (97)
▪ "That was the very speakeasy where it all happened," Edie declared. (110)
▪ It is unknown if Louise maintained her role as a prohibition agent after they married, but in 1925, when the government banned female agents, Louise's husband, George, discovered her secret. (112)
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