Kissing the Beehive

A writer returns to his home town to research the death of a teenage girl whose body he found in the lake. He's also being alternately seduced and repelled by a an alternately charming and alarming woman called Veronica Lake. He reconnects with an old friend, now the police chief, who is convinced that the boy who was convicted of the murder, and later died in prison, was innocent. He finds himself on twin overlapping rollercoasters - the search for the real killer, who appears to be sending him messages, and his disturbing relationship with Lake.

It's another Carroll with a fairly unlikeable character - albeit personable, complicated and mostly well-meaning. In this case it's like he never quite shook off adolescent stuff he seems to show more think he's put a lot of distance on, especially attitudes to women. Ironically, it's not the potentially dangerous obsession Lake has with him that puts him off, it's the way she has lead a pretty amazing life. So. I assume the misogyny comes from the character, not the author?

Good story though, good writing, no fantasy element, thugh with all the usual Carrolll stylistic hallmarks. show less

Kissing the Beehive is the first of the books in the Crane's View trilogy, the others being The Marriage of Sticks and The Wooden Sea. Unfortunately, I've been reading this books horribly out of order. I read The Wooden Sea first, and I've still not read Marriage of Sticks. Thankfully, they don't need to be read in order, although doing so appears to give Frannie McCabe (the protagonist in the last book) far more dimension.

Kissing the Beehive is much more realistic than most of Jonathan Carroll's books. I'm a bit baffled by others shelving it as magical realism or scifi, as the book lacked both of those facets for me. The book maintains a certain speculative hue, but it's a hue more covered by the mystery that the book is attempting to show more solve than anything else. There's nothing overtly fantastical within it that I can name offhand.

The book follows Samuel Bayer, a writer, as he decides to drudge up a decades old mystery for a new novel. When he was young he found the body of a girl, Pauline Ostrova, in the Hudson River; her boyfriend was convicted, but some don't believe he committed the crime. Throw in a mysterious femme fatale figure, and threatening notes appearing at each place he goes as he investigates.. and an interesting premise is set.

The book is dedicated to Stephen King, and one can easily see why if they've read his novella "The Body" or even It in some ways. The book deals heavily in identity and the experiences that shut us off from the children we once were. Nostalgia is almost a summery taste on the tongue, interspersed with the harsh cold of a delightfully creepy mystery more "Fatal Attraction" than "The Maltese Falcon." I'm happy to say, Kissing The Beehive was a book that I thoroughly enjoyed, even reading it out of order as I did. show less

For some reason this book popped into my head during the week and seeing it on the shelf this morning, realised I had to read it. (This is despite the huge pile of new books I've recently bought.) I've been reading Jonathan Carroll for a number of years and some of his novels I adore and some dont quite fit with me. This is one of the former. Exquisitely written in a wonderfully readable style. Essentially this is a murder mystery, a whodunit, yet somehow as you’d expect with Carroll, it never quite fits into that box.

The most "mainstream" of all Carroll novels. A murder mystery told as only Carroll can tell it. Unique characters, interesting observations, and an appropriatley revealing climax. As with all Carroll novels the women are almost more interesting then the men. Good to see the start of Frannie.