Celine

Celine is not your typical private investigator. For some reason, people seem to underestimate 80-year old women with emphysema and a portable oxygen tank and Celine uses this to her advantage. Celine is feisty, shocking, and fearless and once she sets her mind on solving a cold missing person's case, there is nothing that will stand in her way. When Gabriella hires Celine to find her missing father, Celine and her husband, Pete, set out across the west in a camper to solve the cold case and find out what really happened.

As with the author's other books, the landscape is richly described. I greatly enjoyed Celine's spunk and spirit, which was reminiscent of Lizbeth Salander or Flavia de Luce on a quest. While the story was a little show more succinct, I enjoyed Celine and Pete's adventure and would look forward to reading another novel featuring these characters again. show less

In her late 60s, Celine Watkins is still one of the best private investigators out there, a tough, plain-spoken lady with loads of experience whose success rate of 96 percent has caught the attention of the FBI and brought her unwanted offers of employment. But Celine likes being her own boss and would rather work her missing-person cases solo (or with her husband Pete), and since she hails from a well-heeled east-coast family, she doesn’t need the money. Celine and her sisters Bobby and Mimi were brought up by their mother, their philandering father being absent most of the time. It was a mostly happy upbringing that included trips abroad, private school and university, but fifty years later she still mourns that paternal absence. So show more when a young woman named Gabriela approaches her asking for help locating her missing father, Celine cannot find it in herself to say no. Gabriela’s story is a tragic one: her beautiful mother died young, dragged out to sea by a rogue wave, and her handsome father, Paul Lamont—a talented nature photographer whose work regularly appeared in National Geographic—never recovered, subsequently abandoning Gabriela twice: the first time by marrying again and becoming a drunk, and the second time by vanishing into the wilds of Yellowstone Park. Since the investigators at the time concluded he was killed by a bear and his body eaten, Lamont’s disappearance is the coldest of cold cases. But a few of the details don’t add up, and when Celine tracks down some local folks who helped the original investigative team, they express doubts about how the search was conducted and the conclusions reached. Digging deeper, Celine discovers that despite these doubts, official pressure exerted from somewhere on high resulted in the case being declared closed. Sensing a cover up, and in defiance of tangible danger, Celine digs deeper still. Heller has written an engaging and complex tale with many intriguing and unusual characters. Celine herself is a great eccentric, a beneficiary of old New England money who found her talent and turned her back on a privileged life of leisure in order to make herself useful and change peoples’ lives. As much as we like her and root for her, however, a question of plausibility remains. There's no doubt that an older woman can be competent and daring and resourceful and a good shot. But she is so very competent in so many ways, and so extremely resourceful in every situation, and so absolutely fearless no matter what the threat, and such a good shot, especially when it matters most, that the reader’s eyebrows will get a good workout with all the upward motion. Peter Heller, a contributor to magazines like Outdoor and National Geographic Adventure, rarely passes up a chance to describe the natural world eloquently and in detail, but unfortunately at the very point we expect the story to pick up steam, when Celine and Pete hit the trail in search of Lamont, the narrative actually loses momentum, frequently slowing down to observe the light slanting through the trees and take note of the smells and sounds of the forest. Make no mistake, all of this is done in a thoughtful and intelligent manner. The mystery is intricate and compelling on multiple levels and the story is never less than enjoyable. But anyone picking up Celine expecting a tightly plotted detective thriller will likely be disappointed by what is essentially a character-driven literary novel constructed around a decades-old disappearance. show less

Now that I've read three books by Peter Heller, I can officially count him amongst my favorite authors. He writes about Colorado and the American West in such a way that captures the unique beauty of the area. I read somewhere that the plot is loosely based on his mother and stepfather, and the son in the story is the author himself. That made the book come more alive for me because he writes so well of a loving family, although it's a family that has its secrets. While I was reading, I thought there was too much backstory about Celine's growing-up years, but now I see this part of it as a way for the author to pay homage to his mother and her family. It also explained why Celine's emphasis as a private investigator was on locating show more missing relatives.

This wasn't my favorite book by Heller, but any book by him is a good experience. The mystery seemed a bit forced and Celine's character was larger than life. Again, I think he was paying tribute to the mother he revered. The ending wasn't tied up with a neat little bow. I wonder if he is planning a sequel? No matter what he writes next, I am going to be reading it as soon as it comes out. show less

It's not often that a novel features older characters, much less a long-married couple, much, much less a strong senior female lead. Think Nancy Drew as a spirited retiree PI who's a crack shot, thinks of her husband as the Watson to her Holmes, and is always up for an adventure and a road trip. I didn't just love Celene; she was so vividly drawn that I want to be her. Liked the story, loved the characters who populated the pages.

Every time author Peter Heller publishes a book, it’s a must-buy in print for me. His writing style is so unique, I best enjoy curling up with a physical book in my hands. I found this signed copy of Celine, at my local independent bookstore when it was first released. Please don’t judge me for the fact that this book has sat on my bookshelf for far too long. 😅 To be honest, I think I repeatedly put off reading Celine because I didn’t think I would like it as much as The Dog Stars or The Painter, which were incredible stories! The book description seemed so different from the others, I was doubtful it would have the emotional impact similar to the other books. I was completely wrong.

Celine is a private detective living and show more working in New York City. Her specialty is finding missing people. Her husband, Pete, is her business partner, and they are both artists. Gabriela reaches out to Celine to find her father, who was a famous photographer and went missing while working on the border of Montana and Wyoming. Many of his photographs and stories were featured in National Geographic. Gabriela’s father, Lamont, was presumed dead from a grizzly bear attack, but his body was never found. Celine and Pete head out to Yellowstone National Park to begin their investigation.

The search for Gabriela’s father is at the forefront of this novel; however, there are so many layers to the story about the other prominent characters. The emotional weight of this story is heavy. The book opens with a huge punch to the emotional gut, which I didn’t expect. After reading the first few pages, I was wondering what I had gotten myself into. In Heller’s unique style, he weaves into the story what initially appear to be little details but are fascinating tidbits and helpful to learning about the characters. The second most interesting aspect of this novel is Celine’s history as a child and into early adulthood. I loved imagining Celine and Pete traveling through the national forest in their borrowed truck bed camper in the fall. Heller definitely knows how to write about nature, which offers such a dreamy setting to the story.

After allowing myself time to digest the book, I realized that not everything was answered. There is one question that has occurred to me since finishing the book, but it’s nothing significant to the storyline. Just a little detail I wonder about. I realize that leaving out that answer may have been intentional by Heller. He doesn’t seem like the type of writer to miss a detail. The ending was satisfying in a way that left me wanting more. I wasn’t ready for it to be over. There is a conclusion to what happened to Gabriela’s father. I was also left with curiosity about what happened to the characters next. This ending left room for the reader to draw their own conclusions, which I kind of like. It’s fun to dream about what I hope happens next.

As I mentioned earlier, I prefer Peter Heller’s books in print. I’ve read The Dog Stars and The Painter in print and loved them both. I read The River in audiobook format and didn’t care as much for the book as I expected. Furthermore, I hope to someday reread The River, as I own a physical copy, and see if I have a different opinion. Heller’s books in print take a minute to adapt, as they are different from most other books I read. You just have to see it to understand what I’m talking about. So I wonder if The River just didn’t translate well for me in audiobook format. Maybe I’ll find out someday.

I have photos and additional information that I'm unable to include here. It can all be found on my blog, in the link below.
A Book And A Dog show less

By sheer coincidence, this is another book featuring an old woman as lead character; this time she’s the investigator, too. That was refreshing at first, then a bit too much Mary-Sueism crept into Celine’s character. She’s good at everything, apparently, including the use of firearms which comes in handy later in the book. In fact, her one “flaw” of not eating vegetables, seems like a token, as does the former smoking habit that has left her needing oxygen. There’s also a bit of odd construction going on where different angles of narrative are strung together without cohesion or warning. You’ll be going along reading about Celine when suddenly you find yourself taken completely out of that bit of the story into someone show more else’s bit. It’s odd and jarring and caused me to go back and reread more than once. Not a successful maneuver.

Overall though, I liked the book and the dual mystery aspect. First Celine has to investigate Gabriela’s father’s disappearance. Once that gets underway, many strange and sinister things happen that make her believe they are onto some larger conspiracy. Then there’s her son Hank looking into the fact that he may have a half-sibling somewhere due to Celine’s teenage pregnancy that she never speaks about. He only got onto it when her older sister was dying and let it slip in her drug-addled state. It isn’t a major plotline, but fills in some of Celine’s background without seeming too forced. I also liked her relationship with second husband, Pete. It was loving, understanding and on sound footing, but it wasn’t saccharine or fawning. There were nice moments of dialog and byplay that just crackled with life. show less

Celine Watkins is no Miss Marple, her age (68) and her ability to unravel mysteries being among the few similarities. The protagonist in Peter Heller's “Celine” is a tall, elegant, uppercrust woman who looks like she could be a former supermodel. Instead she's a private investigator specializing in reuniting families. It is a personal crusade for her, for she doesn't need the money. As a teenager she had a baby taken away from her. The whereabouts of her daughter is one mystery she has never been able to solve.

Now she is hired by Gabriela, whose father, a National Geographic photographer, disappeared in Yellowstone two decades earlier, supposedly the victim of a bear. But that explanation has always seemed fishy, and now Gabriela show more wants to learn the truth.

So Celine and Pete, her husband, head west to Yellowstone. This isn't ideal territory for Celine to operate in because of its high altitude. She was a heavy smoker for 30 years and suffers from emphysema. She carries oxygen with her for emergencies, of which there are plenty in the mountains.

The mystery deepens when it becomes apparent that a man, a former military sniper, is following them. If the missing man wasn't killed by a bear, did he run away to escape Gabriela's oppressive stepmother or, as the presence of the sniper suggests, is there something else going on?

Heller's frequent flashbacks filling in details about Celine's past soon get bothersome, interfering with the flow of the narrative. Still they give depth to the character and to the novel itself, so readers should just slow down and enjoy an unusual and exceptional mystery. show less