From Amazon.com
The descent by a group of egocentric, flamboyant filmmakers on a small town has been the setup for a number of novels and a few movies. Rhys Bowen takes her crack at it with a tidy little story about a group of documentarians who invade a small village in Wales to capture the raising of a sunken German bomber on film. Llanfair is surrounded by abandoned mineshafts, and when the bombastic producer Grantley Smith is found murdered in one of them, Constable Evan Evans, Bowen's series hero, stumbles down more than a few dead ends before he uncovers the motive. Finding evidence of a stash of paintings from the National Gallery that were hidden at the scene of the murder, Evan uncovers a decades-old plot involving art forgery that doesn't really have much to do with the murder except coincidence. It does, however, keep the narrative moving, as does a love affair between the constable and the schoolteacher, who turns out to have been married to one of the filmmakers. All's well that ends well--except, probably, for the unfortunate title punning to which Bowen (
Evan Help Us,
Evanly Choirs, and so forth) seems addicted.
--Jane Adams
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
When a documentary film crew arrives in the Welsh village of Llanfair to try to raise a WWII German bomber sunk in a lake, Constable Evan Evans finds he has more to do than simply keep the curious at bay in this light police procedural. The film's arrogant and conceited director, Grantley Smith, manages to offend just about everyone, including Evan. To complicate matters, Grantley's partner on the project, Edward Ferrers, turns out to be the ex-husband of Evan's sweetheart, Bronwen Price. When Grantley falls out of the local scenic railway train unharmed, it appears to be an accident. But it's clearly murder when Evan discovers his body in a pool of water in an abandoned mine, weighed down with slate. More suspenseful (and intriguing) are the recorded memoirs, interspersed with the main action, of old Trefor Thomas, who recounts how he and his greedy girlfriend schemed to steal a painting from the National Gallery collection stored in a Welsh mine during WWII. The two seemingly unrelated plot lines knit together nicely in the end. As in the four previous books in the series (Evans Above, etc.), Bowen's great strength is her endearing Welsh characters, from the modest Evan to such amusing locals as the saucy barmaid and the rival chapel preachers. This mystery is sure to appeal to those who prefer old-fashioned, heartwarming stories to tawdry tales full of graphic sex and violence. (Feb. 3)
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