Death of a Much Traveled Woman

Summary:

The Death of a Much-Travelled Woman gathers in one volume the exploits and mishaps of globe-trotting translator-sleuth Cassandra Reilly. Lesbian detective and translator Cassandra journeys in these nine stories to such varied locations as Helsinki, Hawaii, Vladivostock, Reykjavik, and the English countryside. The thefts, murders, and other crimes she’s called on to help solve are engagingly literary, with more than a dash of satire aimed at publishers, editors, writers, and, of course, translators. [summary from https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1930932.The_Death_of_a_Much_Travelled_Woman]

Group Review

1 thumbs up
10 thumbs down

The anthology is a companion to novels in a series. We didn’t realized this before reading.  As a result, our critiques may be too harsh.  There were moments of good writing but as a whole this entire anthology was a disappointment.

Not a mystery:

The readers felt that calling the collection “mystery fiction” was a huge stretch. There were no mysteries to be solved. The reader goes from murder to solution practically in the same sentence, so suspense was lacking.  Cassandra fails to give us the pleasure of the hunt.

No sense of place:

The much-travelled woman didn’t convince us she was travelling!  Wilson describes a place as if she’s read about being there rather than actually being there. Some of the descriptions felt cliche; for instance, saunas in Finland.

Character development:

Characters lacked back story and depth. This might be due to the anthology being a “add-on” to an established series that none of us had read.  We got no sense of character because of this.  However, sisterhood of lesbians in the literary world was well documented!

Short stories are difficult to write:

Many of the stories started with good ideas. But the writing wasn’t good enough to sustain the collection. Short stories are notoriously hard to write, and short story mystery fiction even harder.  Because of this, a writer must be at the top of their craft. Travelling sleuth Cassandra failed to convince us she was a well traveled lesbian detective.

Read a novel in the series and let us know if it’s good!

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