The Bee's Kiss (Joe Sandilands Mysteries)
by Barbara Cleverly
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Book Summary Information
Author: Barbara CleverlyEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-02-27
ISBN: 0385340419
Number of pages: 352
Publisher: Delta
Book Reviews of The Bee's Kiss (Joe Sandilands Mysteries)
Book Review: "Someone's Been Playing Blind Man's Bluff with Me All Along!"
Summary: 4 Stars
Allow me to explain the title of this book: technically, it's the name of a cocktail that one of the characters drinks during the course of the story, but the more symbolic nature of the "bee's kiss" refers to the fact that a honey bee cannot survive after it stings an opponent - by striking out, it effectively kills itself. Such is the case of one of the several victims in this intriguing, historically-based and ultimately thought-provoking mystery.
There have been several books starring Joe Sandilands already, the first being The Last Kashmiri Rose (Joe Sandilands Murder Mystery), but this is the first installment that takes place outside of India; instead transporting Sandilands back home to London and Scotland Yard. Set between the two World Wars, Cleverly conveys the atmosphere and turmoil of the 1920s extremely well, creating a vivid backdrop dotted with fun historical tidbits dotted throughout the narrative.
Joe Sandilands is called into the Ritz Hotel in order to investigate the sudden and brutal death of Dame Beatrice Jagow-Joliffe: a vivacious forty-something year old heiress, who played a prominent part in the last World War with her organization of a group of women trained in code-breaking and her involvement in the Wrens (the Woman's Royal Navy Corps).
Yet despite her social reputation and the good deeds to her name, it doesn't take long for Sandilands to discover that there are less-than-reputable elements to her life; including a mother and brother that despised her, a younger lover, and a bitter lady's companion. It isn't long before he realizes that the initial conclusions made concerning her death (that it was a burglary gone wrong) are misguided, and he sets out to find the real reasons for her death.
Teamed up with a young policewoman named Matilda "Tilly" Westhorpe who is called in to shed light on some of the more feminine aspects of the case, and Bill Armitage, a plain-clothes policeman who was staking out the hotel for a cat burglar on the night of Beatrice's death, the three of them begin to poke into a mystery that involves political turmoil, blackmail, scandal, double-crosses - all that juicy stuff. But when Sandilands is ordered by his superiors to drop the case, he begins to suspect that there was much more to Beatrice's murder than meets the eye...
The thing that makes Cleverly's novels stand out from the average detective novel is the ethical dilemmas that make for shades-of-grey characters, ambiguous morals and often a bittersweet conclusion. To say anymore would give several twists away; suffice to say, the end of most of Cleverly's books will leave you wondering: "What would *I* do in that situation?"
Strewn throughout are little portraits of life in this particular time and place, giving the sense that Joe Sandilands (as well as all the other characters, no matter how brief their appearance in the story was) have a life outside the crime that needs to be solved. I can't wait to start reading another Cleverley novel...
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