Welcome

This blog was established by Patrick Hughes (1948 - 2022). More content that Patrick intended to add to the blog has been added by his partner, Glenda Mac Naughton, since his death. Patrick was an avid and critical reader, a member of several book groups over the years, a great lover of music histories and biographies and a community activist and policy analyist and developer. This blog houses his writing across these diverse areas of his interests. It is a way to still engage with his thinking and thoughts and to pay tribute to it.

Search This Blog

Monday, October 2, 2023

Greenwood, K. (2004) Heavenly Pleasures. Allen & Unwin

 

Greenwood, K. (2004) Heavenly Pleasures. Allen & Unwin

 

Summary

Corinna Chapman is a baker who employs three assistants - a recovering drug addict and two anorexic models. Corinna's apartment building seems to be a magnet for mysteries and, with her new lover Daniel a private investigator, Corinna cannot help but try to solve them. For example, why is someone spiking the very expensive chocolates made by the lovely sisters at nearby Heavenly Pleasures? Why is a policewoman following the new occupant of an upstairs flat? Oh yes - why is someone trying to blow-up the apartment block?!

 

My comments

Whoever told Kerry Greenwood that she's funny has a lot to answer for! The pages are littered with allegedly snappy one-liners that don't work and 'oh so knowing' insights with all the substance of an agony aunt column. Thankfully, these don't contribute at all to the story or characters, so they could be stripped out easily, which should make the remainder much easier to take seriously. However, despite Greenwood presenting Corinna as a sort of amateur sleuth, she never really discovers anything about the various mysteries in her life - the answers just somehow emerge unaided. In the end, we are no wiser about how she found out the answers than we are about how Jason developed his recipe for chocolate muffins.

 

No comments:

Post a Comment