{"id":1774,"date":"2015-09-27T16:59:44","date_gmt":"2015-09-27T23:59:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=1774"},"modified":"2015-09-27T16:59:44","modified_gmt":"2015-09-27T23:59:44","slug":"ellen-hart-the-grave-soul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/ellen-hart-the-grave-soul\/","title":{"rendered":"Ellen Hart: The Grave Soul"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TheGraveSoul\"<\/a>Ellen Hart is simply one of the very best traditional mystery writers in the business, and if you like a well crafted, thoughtful, traditional mystery and you don\u2019t read Ellen Hart\u2019s Jane Lawless series, you are really missing a bet. Jane, a Minneapolis restauranteur who also holds a P.I. license, is always the calm center of the storm. Except when she\u2019s not.<\/p>\n

One of Hart\u2019s gifts is to slightly change things up with each book (and as this is her 23rd Jane Lawless outing, I imagine that\u2019s not such an easy task) and in this one the opening sequence is nothing short of spectacular. We are introduced to a woman who has been beaten, finds brief sanctuary, and is thrust back into the snow. We\u2019re given a Wisconsin setting, so we know it\u2019s cold.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t know who the woman is and if you hate, hate, hate spoilers look away, but it turns out to be Jane. From there Hart turns back the clock so we can discover just what it is Jane has been up to that\u2019s led to a beating. It\u2019s an incredibly effective opening, and if you\u2019re like me, 23 books in, you\u2019re pretty fond of Jane. You want to find out what happened to her.<\/p>\n

From there Hart constructs a plot that finds a former employee of Jane\u2019s asking for help with his girlfriend who has \u201cdisappeared\u201d into the folds of her family in New Dresden, Wisconsin. He has met them but doesn\u2019t know them well and is worried when his girlfriend won\u2019t return his calls. He\u2019s sure something is up.<\/p>\n

So now there are two things the reader almost desperately wants to know: what happened to Jane, and what the heck is up with Kira Adler, the young man\u2019s girlfriend. As Jane begins to explicate the Adler family she uncovers a number of secrets, one of them the mysterious death of Kira\u2019s mother when Kira was only five. She\u2019d begun having nightmares about her mother\u2019s death and that leads her down the rabbit hole.<\/p>\n

Now, there are two schools of thought on Jane\u2019s loud, over the top best friend, Cordelia. Some people hate her so much they won\u2019t read the books; I personally think she\u2019s a hoot and love reading about her. She always provides some comic relief while at the same time being completely loyal to Jane in every way. Cordelia joins in early on and pops up throughout, so if you\u2019re not a Cordelia fan, this book may annoy you.<\/p>\n

As Jane puzzles out just what\u2019s happened to Kira and what\u2019s going on in her family, and the book comes full circle back to the opening sequence, you won\u2019t be able to turn pages fast enough. Hart never writes too long, her pacing is great, and her characters are wonderful. Even smaller characters are memorable and serve their purpose. These novels are a master class on how to write a well constructed mystery. The Grave Soul<\/em> is one of Hart\u2019s best, and that\u2019s saying a lot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ellen Hart is simply one of the very best traditional mystery writers in the business, and if you like a well crafted, thoughtful, traditional mystery and you don\u2019t read Ellen Hart\u2019s Jane Lawless series, you are really missing a bet. Jane, a Minneapolis restauranteur who also holds a P.I. license, is always the calm center … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-1774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-americancozy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1774"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1776,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1774\/revisions\/1776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}