Sweet and Deadly (1981)

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Charlaine Harris' first novel, back in print due to the popularity of the Sookie Stackhouse series (beginning with [b:Dead Until Dark|301082|Dead Until Dark (Sookie Stackhouse, #1)|Charlaine Harris|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1277990312s/301082.jpg|479517]) and the TV series True Blood based on them.

A good mystery, without the paranormal elements that Harris fans may expect based on her more recent series, though one line suggests the germ of the idea behind the Harper Connelly series: When Catherine Linton has discovered her second dead body within a few days, she thinks to herself facetiously "People should hire me as a divining rod, to find dead bodies".

Didn't spot the solution coming - A good mystery. ( )

This is the first book I've read from Charlaine Harris that wasn't part of the Southern Vampire Mysteries series and I was just a little disappointed. I just love that series so much, I guess I was bound to be let down by something else. Sweet and Deadly was an ok book, but nothing that really stands out from all other mysteries. Bodies start showing up and in small town and it's up to the main character to figure out what's going on. Same basic story I've read a million times before, but if that's all you're looking for, it was fine. I enjoyed it and was looking forward to finding out the killer and motive at the end, so that's something. Worth a read if you see it somewhere, but not worth searching for, basically. ( )

I have not read any other Charlaine Harris novels, so cannot compare this one to her Sookie Stackhouse series. However, I was rather unimpressed with Sweet and Deadly and was only mildly appeased to learn that this was her first novel. While the writing was okay, the character development was minimal, at best. The reader gets no sense at all about the main character, Catherine, and thus feels no sympathy for her. She's a blank canvas. And none of the other characters are any more complex or developed.

I picked this book up in the Mystery section of my local library and was rather confused why it was a mystery. Okay, so we don't know who's killing people in this small town. But there is no real search for the murderer, just Catherine's bland ruminations and observations. Really, she simply stumbles into the solution. The plot didn't get her there, much less anything she did.

Finally, there was no sense of time, in that I had no idea when all this action was supposed to occur. Catherine, a small town newspaper reporter, uses a typewriter and the paper is produce on an old-fashioned press. But she's a single young woman living alone and driving herself around town, packing a pistol. Heck, her neighbor drives a Toyota. So when exactly is this story supposed to have happened?

It almost read as if it was the second novel in a series and the author assumed you had read the first book, so she skipped a lot of details that would have developed the story more fully. The only good news is that it was an easy and quick read. ( )

Quick read. Not as developed as some of her other books. ( )