She Treads Softly: Granite Harbor

Saturday, April 20, 2024

Granite Harbor

Granite Harbor by Peter Nichols
4/30/24; 320 pages
Celadon Books

Granite Harbor by Peter Nichols is a recommended murder mystery/police procedural set in Granite Harbor, Maine.

Police detective Alex Brangwen was a novelist in Great Britain before he moved to Granite Harbor. Now he is a divorced, single father and the sole detective on the police force. When a local teenager is found brutally murdered in the Settlement, the town’s historic archaeological site, Alex is the one who must find the killer. His teenage daughter, Sophie, was a friend of the victim and his friends.

This is a character driven murder mystery with gruesome murder scenes, which some readers may want to take into consideration. This novel veers more toward horror so those who enjoy that genre mixed with a procedural may like it more than I did.

The narrative is told through the point-of-view of Alex and Isabel Dorr, a parent of one of the teens and a character player at the Settlement site. There are also chapters sharing information about the killer's past incorporated through out the novel, although the identity is hidden. From the opening we understand that the killer may still have the teens in his sights. Take note that there is a twist in the plot further along that was too incredulous for me to accept the sudden insertion of it.

As a character driven novel, developing the characters into believable, sympathetic, unique individuals is essential. Alex and Isabel achieved this level of development, but the other characters fell short. Alex was the most fully realized character and if another novel featured him I would likely give it a read. Thanks to Celadon Books for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.