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Title: One Grave Too Many (Diane Fallon Forensic Investigation, No. 1)
ISBN: 0451411196
Author:
Beverly Connor
Publicate Date: 2004-09-07
Publish: 2004-09-07
List Price: $7.99
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $3.25
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $0.57
Amazon Merchant Price: $7.99
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| Customer Review: |
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1: A wonderful suprise!
After a horrifying incident in South America, former forensic anthropologist Diane Fallon has made a vow never to return to her former calling. And as the new director of the RiverTrail Museum of Natural History in Georgia, she is starting to heal, thanks to the help of her new job and friends. But when a former lover re-enters her life with a problem that requires her professional expertise, she feels obligated to assist. A friend of his has his hands full with a troubled, runaway daughter. And he has a bone that he thinks may be linked to the case. So he gives it to Detective Frank Duncan, Diane's former lover. I'm sure you can make the leap of logic as to how the bone comes into Diane's possession. The only issue is the bone has nothing to do with the runaway girl. Her father found the bone and used it to renew interest in her case. But when the whole family is murdered and the missing girl is found and accused of the crime, Diane and Frank begin to think that maybe the bone is involved in something much bigger than a runaway child and a troubled family. And then the attacks against Diane begin. Are the attacks related to her problems at the museum or the bone? And is the accused girl really guilty or just a patsy for someone much more devious?
This was a great surprise. I really didn't think it would be comparable to the works of Patricia Cornwell or Kathy Reichs. I mean, I'd never heard of Beverly Connor before I came across this by accident. And that was most certainly my mistake. I loved this and can't wait to get the next book.
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2: One Grave Too Many
I thought that this book was wonderful. I am an avid reader and this book kept me up all night trying to get to the ending. If you love mystery crime novels you'll like this. I think Beverly Connor is great and the characters seem so real. There are a lot of twists and turns but that is what makes it so interesting. My only question is what order do the books go in?
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3: Fast Paced Mystery Set in Small Southern Museum
I was lucky with this series. (I started to read the Lindsay Chamberlain books well into the series although it did not detract from my enjoyment of the ones I have read. However, I actually started at the beginning of this series with this book.
There's lots of descriptions of the plot of this book although I would question the accuracy of some of them, so I just want to say that is a very fast paced stories involving four murders, three in the present and one in the past. The theme is the relationship between child and parent. The book is more complex than any of her other books I have read to date.
Be prepared for an absorbing read.
If you like forensic mysteries you should give this one a go.
One last point though. There are some hanging threads. The author seems to do this as a lead in to future books. One for instance makes a reappearance on the first page of the second book in this series. So don't expect everything to be tied up with a neat little bow-- it just ain't going to happen.
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4: New series off to a frenzied start
The heroine, Diane Fallon, is an ex-forensic anthropologist and has inherited the directorship of a new(?) museum, both under circumstances that remain mysterious for long. We are tossed into what feels like the middle of a story where Fallon is a febrile near-hysteric, frenetically trying to get her museum up and running, dealing with a hostile board, hiring staff on whims, and falling back into an apparently old relationship with equally distraught detective Frank Duncan, who now brings her bones she really doesn't want to see. Connor's choice of metaphors--for people, for buildings--is calculated to establish an undertone of threat and horror. These inexplicable doings continue through the first half of the book, by which time enough of the backstory has emerged for the reader to realize this is not the second book in a series. We see that Fallon has some humor, the confusing incidents are beginning to settle into some sense, and the multiple cases in which overlapping sets of characters are involved become engrossing. Connor's gradual shift from psychodrama to forensic police procedural is, I think, a sophisticated way of showing how Diane is getting her life back together. That got this book another star. This book's title, One Grave Too Many, might better have applied to the "first" book implied by the appalling backstory that gradually emerges.
It is difficult to imagine how this can be made into a series, since so much of the trail of clues depends on the colleagues, buddies, or family of Diane or Frank, and so many incidents are highly personal. Maybe the series will develop into a "family sleuths" situation? We never do learn much about Frank's background or earlier relationship with Diane. Here he seems to be inveigling Diane to join him in shady, if not illegal, activities, since he is not officially part of these investigations (the reasons why are another plot thread, one not resolved). In general I think Connor lacks polish and wholly convincing dialogue, indulges in caricatures of subsidiary characters who nevertheless aren't memorable, and has an overwrought, tiring plot with, like, two separate conclusions. The plot features a lot more "action" and plot twists than we have seen in Connor's previous and clever Lindsay Chamberlain (forensic archaeologist) series. I don't know why she has dropped(?) that series, one I enjoyed more than this.
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5: digging up the past
A second series by Connor, this one features Diane Fallon, another forensic anthropologist. In ONE GRAVE TOO MANY, she's the new director of the RiverTrail Museum of Natural History in Georgia, leaving forensics in her haunted past, until a lover and a murdered family bring her past back to the present.
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