A Child's Garden of Death

This is the first mystery featuring Lyon and Bea Wentworth. Lyon is a children’s author, who continually suggests various alliterative titles for his new books, while having an obsession with hot air ballooning and is generally regarded as good natured, rather absent minded (such as driving off in the wrong car) and a dreamer. He is obviously still mourning the death of his eight year old daughter and continually writes the kind of stories she would enjoy. Bea is hard of hearing, a political f [...]

I found this hard to follow and incredibly forgettable. If you are a fan of classic cozy mysteries ala Agatha Christie, this can only be a disappointment to you. The pacing feels very slow, the characters are blend, and the mystery is kinda dull. Stick to Christie, or for a newer classic, M.C. Beaton.**I received this copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review**

"A Child's Garden of Death," the first of the Lyon and Bea Wentworth books was originally published in 1975, and it is good to see its, and the other nine books' return. This elegant, convoluted story which features a Connecticut children's book author whose hobby is hot air ballooning, and his politician wife, along with an interesting cast of secondary characters, is just wonderful. It did not feel in the least dated, with the minor exception of one character's political speech, and even that [...]

Lyon Wentworth is a children's book author and his wife, Bea, is a state senator; their marriage has survived the hit and run death of their only child. Their marriage is strong and supportive. Lyon is called in by his longtime friend, the Chief of police to provide his thoughts on some bones discovered on a remote property. It turns out to be a murder of a family from over thirty years ago. The mystery captures Lyon's attention away from his current book, much to Bea's annoyance.First he discov [...]

While the set up of both murders is interesting, the book was occasionally hard to follow. The occasional lapses into dreamscapes don't help, since transitions in the book are already rather abrupt. He's in CT, he's in FL, he's in a hot air balloon. The lead detective is having trouble because of the death of his daughter, (not a spoiler as this is a fact about the narrator and not part of the mystery of the book), he's now got an adopted daughter. (Seriously she just appears at one point.)The s [...]

I remembered reading one of Forrest's books some years back, and all I could recall was that the protagonist wrote children's books and was a hot-air balloonist. Someone on the DorothyL list reminded me that the books were set in Connecticut and I discovered there were several in the series. This was the first, where protagonist Lyon Wentworth gets involved in a very cold case because his friend is the police chief in their small town. Numerous suspects, quasi-genealogical research, great danger [...]

This is an old (1975) book I picked up at a book sale. A children's book writer is recruited to help his old friend, the local police chief, solve the case of three unidentified bodies found in a grave that dates back to the 1940s. Through their investigation, several other murders or attempted murders happen. I didn't find this book as exciting as many of the newer mystery books. It seemed very sedate. Also, I found that there were several major strokes of good luck that helped solve the case, [...]

A construction site quickly becomes a murder scene when bones from a family of three are discovered and they turn out to be the bones of a family that had supposedly left for California 30 years before.Their curiosity piqued by this discovery, children’s book author, Lyon Wentworth, and his small town police chief friend, Rocco, begin to unearth clues that lead to the killer who is still in town, and working to kill each of them.A little humor, some harrowing suspense, a bit of sex makes this [...]

This book had everything, twist, turns, thrills and spills - it very interesting they way it followed the clues to find and solution to the mystery. An old story bought into present day motives. I enjoy that the book jumped around a lot as it certainly kept me on me on my toes. It was a book that I wanted to read till I finished. You cant get better than that. This book was provided to me in return for an honest and unbiased review

I know I've been running ragged lately and that may be partially to blame, but I found this incredibly disjointed at times and difficult to follow as smoothly as I would like. There are 10 books in the series so they must have been at least semi-popular. Maybe I'll give this another try at some point or just pick up another book in the series to see if it grabs me more.

2 1/2. The writing is competent, but I never felt particularly engaged by either the story (which is very twisty and convoluted) or the characters - except maybe the cop who's a friend of our sleuth. I *might* give another volume in the series a try, but I'm not exactly rushing out to do so.