Bell, Book, and Scandal by Jill Churchill, a review

The book: Skip it

The author: Not worth reading again

Review:

This was my first time knowingly reading a mystery by Jill Churchill. One of the local librarians had recommended I try her, although she freely admitted she had never read any of Churchill's works. The only tidbit I was told prior to starting the book was that the librarian heard that "Jill Churchill" was a pseudonym picked specifically to have the distinction of following Agatha Christie's works, which surely must be a treasured spot for any mystery writer. I have no idea whether or not this is true.

The first thing I discovered when flipping open the book and reading the inside covers was that this author also writes the Grace and Favor mysteries that I have only recently discovered. Unfortunately, the only Grace and Favor book I have read thus far was, in my opinion, quite the drab and boring mystery. I finished it in order to find out Whodunnit, but was not impressed enough to go back for more. After having read Bell, Book, and Scandal, I found myself wishing it was as good as the Grace and Favor book.

I almost could not bring myself to finish the first chapter in this book, let alone the rest of it. I found the characters to be two-dimensionally stereotypical, and not in a good way. Characters often seemed to be introduced for the sole purpose of adding one or two extra paragraphs without improving the book. I could not bring myself to care for any of them. I was surprised that a book with a 2003 copyright date would have such sexist situations. For example, the main character's male lover is introduced as such, talks about his messy apartment that he needs her to help clean, eats the leftovers from her excellent dinner, and then has the audacity to tell her she needs to wait for another time to talk to him about something that is going on in her life. All of this was on page three of the book, so right off the bat I presumed the female protagonist is an idiot for allowing such a fool into her life.

The general idea of the story is that Jane Jeffry, our less-than-intelligent heroine, is going to go to a local mystery conference with her best friend. Jane is not a writer yet, but she aspires to be one someday soon. Throughout the course of this utterly unrealistic and forgettable story, Jane winds up almost inadvertently solving the mystery of two seemingly unrelated incidents, neither of which provoked the least little bit of curiosity or suspense on my part. I was surprised to learn there were other books in this series that preceded this one, as I could almost forgive the author if she had written this book to set up a future series.

The author tends to exaggerate using unnecessary and illogical details, which drove me a bit batty. An example of this was Jane's best friend entering a driveway at about fifty miles per hour and then screeching to a halt. Not many drivers can make a left or right turn into a driveway safely at that speed, and not many driveways are long enough to allow for the 175-ish feet that would be necessary for the driver to stop without hitting something. The author took a stab at writing a couple of love scenes, and I truly wonder why. They did nothing to further the plot and actually bored me to read. I would have been happier if the author had her protagonist ditch the boyfriend and go out to buy some really good chocolate. That, at least, would have been believable.

All in all, I have no intention of reading another one of Jill Churchill's books, which saddens me in a way. I normally really enjoy mysteries and had been hoping that she would live up to her spot right after Agatha Christie.