The Crow Trap
Summary:
A British environmental survey suddenly turns dangerous when several deaths occur.
Three very different women—team leader Rachael Lambert, botanist Anne Preece, and zoologist Grace Fulwell—are hired to check the area of a planned quarry for environmental problems. Arriving at Baikie’s Cottage, which is to be the group’s home base, Rachael finds her friend Bella, who lives nearby, hanged in the shed along with a suicide note. Despite this gruesome discovery, the survey mostly goes as planned, although Grace, an uncommunicative young woman, observes an amazing number of otters in the stream running through the area. The owners of the land the quarry is on, Robert and Livvy Fulwell, are eager to see the project approved. The owners of nearby Slateburn Quarries, Godfrey and Barbara Waugh, are less enthusiastic, but the survey continues until Grace is found strangled near Baikie’s. Assigned to the case is Inspector Vera Stanhope, who often visited the cottage years ago with her father, a friend of the rather famous lady who owned it. As Vera seeks answers, she finds so many threads that link Bella’s suicide and Grace’s murder that it becomes hard to tell whether the murder is rooted in the quarry project or past secrets. (Kirkus Review, December 2016 from https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/ann-cleeves/the-crow-trap/)
Group Reviews/Comments:
7 thumbs up, 4 thumbs down.
“Excellent in writing a mystery.”
Many agreed that Vera is a very unlikable character, a real “witch,” with others pointing out that she had to really fight hard to find her place among a male dominated society–especially difficult in rural police force. If she had been a male character, perhaps her “rough edges” would have been more kindly taken, such as just being “grouchy” or “crusty” rather than witchy. But the members who didn’t like Vera, really didn’t like her! “A witch” “A mooch” “amusing but too hard to like to get into story”
Some readers really liked the Vera character, though, and found the roughness contributed to the feeling of a genuine person, a well developed “real” character. She was really a new type of female officer when this series started, and it’s tough to get a fresh take on the mystery genre, so the feeling was that this part was done well.
Many found it difficult that the story was told from so many different perspectives. It was very hard to follow and slowed down the flow of the mystery. Just when you were reeled in, you had to start at the beginning again with another character’s perspective. Tedious.
The characters themselves, though, were distinctly written-a real challenge. All three women were distinct with different degrees of likability, sympathy, mistrust, etc. Although again the group was split–some liked the tension building up between the three women, others felt it was very “sophomoric.”
Other comments:
Introducing the Vera character so late in the novel was a mistake; you don’t wait until the end to introduce the detective in a detective series!
I usually enjoy all the elements this story contained, but felt this read was a slog.
The missing child barely introduced at first was a cheat.
Well done coming up with a new detective.
Loved the people!
Great setting!
