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Debra Hamel is the author of a number of books about ancient Greece. She writes and blogs from her subterranean lair in North Haven, CT. Read more.

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Blog stats:
BOOK REVIEWS: 625
BOOK NOTICES: 268
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Updated 11-26-24. [Reviews are longer and have ratings. Notices do not have ratings.]

Books by Debra Hamel:

THE BATTLE OF ARGINUSAE :
VICTORY AT SEA AND ITS TRAGIC AFTERMATH IN THE FINAL YEARS OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR
By Debra Hamel


Kindle | paperback (US)
Kindle | paperback (UK)

KILLING ERATOSTHENES:
A TRUE CRIME STORY
FROM ANCIENT ATHENS
By Debra Hamel


Kindle | paperback (US)
Kindle | paperback (UK)

READING HERODOTUS:
A GUIDED TOUR THROUGH THE WILD BOARS, DANCING SUITORS, AND CRAZY TYRANTS OF THE HISTORY
By Debra Hamel


paperback | Kindle | hardcover (US)
paperback | hardcover (UK)

THE MUTILATION OF THE HERMS:
UNPACKING AN ANCIENT MYSTERY
By Debra Hamel


Kindle | paperback (US)
Kindle | paperback (UK)

TRYING NEAIRA:
THE TRUE STORY OF A COURTESAN'S SCANDALOUS LIFE IN ANCIENT GREECE
By Debra Hamel


paperback | hardcover (US)
paperback | hardcover (UK)

SOCRATES AT WAR:
THE MILITARY HEROICS OF AN ICONIC INTELLECTUAL
By Debra Hamel


Kindle (US) | Kindle (UK)

ANCIENT GREEKS IN DRAG:
THE LIBERATION OF THEBES AND OTHER ACTS OF HEROIC TRANSVESTISM
By Debra Hamel


Kindle (US) | Kindle (UK)

IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY TWEET:
FIVE HUNDRED 1ST LINES IN 140 CHARACTERS OR LESS
By Debra Hamel


Kindle | paperback (US)
Kindle | paperback (UK)

PRISONERS OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR
By Debra Hamel


Kindle (US) | Kindle (UK)





Book-blog.com by Debra Hamel is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution - Noncommercial - No Derivative Works 3.0 License.



Buzzelli, Elizabeth Kane: Dead Dancing Women

  Amazon  

4 stars

Dead Dancing Women is the first installment in a new series featuring Emily Kincaid, an unsuccessful mystery writer who's moved up to the woods of northern Michigan to live and write in peace. Three years into the move, Emily has no regrets. Her life is tranquil, work on the latest unlikely-to-be-published novel interrupted by gardening, piecework for the area's second largest paper, and getting to know the locals--at least until she's dragged headlong, as it were, into a mystery. When we first meet Emily she's bringing her garbage cans in from the road, a chore that's attracted the attention of an unusual number of crows--menacing in their quanity and their fearlessness and their single-minded interest in the contents of her trash can....

Because she's the one to find the severed head, and because of her journalistic interest in the case, Emily quickly turns from being a failed mystery writer into an amateur sleuth. She winds up all but partnering with Deputy Dolly--fully half of the local constabulary--driving around town and interviewing the locals about the dead woman. There are a number of avenues to explore: arguments among neighbors that might have escalated into murder, a local pastor's fiery denouncement of what the dead woman and her friends had been up to in the woods, a bunch of survivalists who just might be strange enough to have killed the woman.

Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli's debut mystery kept me interested to the end, though when it comes the solution to the puzzle is not very surprising. There's one loose end--regarding the condition of the first corpse discovered--that I would have liked tied up. But in general I enjoyed the read. Buzzelli has created an interesting circle of secondary characters--Emily's wacky neighbor Harry Mockerman, who's wont to stop by with the occasional batch of possum stew; her grating ex-husband Jackson, who's moving into the area and thus likely to be around for the next installment; the squat Deputy Dolly, who shows surprising flashes of femininity beneath her law-and-order exterior. I wouldn't mind visiting with these folks again.

Comments

1.

this sounds like a good read, great review!

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