Clam Wake, Mary Daheim

#106

Well it was a good thing I had no expectations from this author, because I wasn't disappointed; but I was both mildly surprised and disgusted.

I was surprised because I liked the story and the conclusion: Two cousins (one who is a well known amateur detective) go to house sit for their Aunt & Uncle in order to cast a proxy vote against a sewer project on the small WA island where the Aunt & Uncle live. The cousins stumble upon a dead man, who it is mentioned looks like one of the cousin's deceased father. The residents are harboring (pun intended) a secret, a mysterious boat is seen late every night crossing across the inlet, and a woman w/ child-like mentality wanders around the community taking the residents' prescriptions.

I was Disgusted because: the majority of the characters, 1 cousin, the aunts, and mother are snarky, mean, rude, b!+@#&s and I don't care if they have a "heart of gold/good heart"! You do not call your children or nieces "Idiot", "Dopey", "Dummy", "Dingbat". You also do not go out to dinner with someone and eat their dinner while they are away from the table..... Disgusting people.

At the back of the book is a recipe for "Auntie Vance's Beef Noodle Bake", which would normally enticed me but the Author, herself is rude (although I guess she considers herself funny). Excerpts from the recipe: "Don't go cheap. Life's too short"; "Skip the lean stuff; get the grade with the most fat or you might as well eat a cardboard box"; "Green isn't as good for you as the other three--so what if they cost more"; "BIG Dash, don't skimp-- nobody lives forever"; "See above-- you've got eyes right"; "Plenty of it-- you got something against flavor"; "Whatever you call the damned thing"; "Forget you have arteries"; "If you're too dumb to figure it out, you shouldn't be reading this"; & "It's a Canadian product, so what. You want to start a border war"

So the author herself is as rude & tacky as her characters, which obviously resemble her-very-own snarky self.

What the author isn't: "funny". But I'll give the book 1 ★ for the story and non-main characters.

I will not be reading her again ( )

Judith and Renie's Aunt Vance and Uncle Vince are off to visit the other Grover sister and her husband in Beatrice, Nebraska, because Aunt Ellen is having shoulder surgery and Uncle Win can't keep up with all her jobs and volunteering. There's going to be an important vote on Whoopee Island (not the real Whoopee Island in Florida), where Vance and Vince live. They want their nieces to vote in their place. Joe and Bill have won a trip to New Zealand, so they won't be around.

You can tell that Ms. Daheim hasn't kept a handy list of names for minor recurring characters. In Fowl Prey Vince's last name was Cogswell and he was a retired cab driver. Now it's 'Weber' and he's a retired dairy deliveryman (been one his entire career). Renie and Bill's offspring, Tom, Terry, and Anne, are mentioned as their three in chapter 7.

There are a few jokes about finding a body before the cousins reach the island. It happens, of course. Worse, the victim seems to have been a nice man. It isn't very long into the mystery before the reader can nominate more understandable candidates for murder. I freely admit that I didn't see the motive for the murder coming.

If you like this series, as I do, you'll probably like this entry. Auntie Vance's Beef Noodle Bake is the recipe at the end. We're told it's as she would tell us how to make it, so the comments are fun. ( )

Perfect listening while I was raking leaves. I think one book by this author is enough for me. I tired fairly quickly of the supposed "humor" behind the words of the cousins and Judith's mother was just plain irritating! ( )

I found this book to be very annoying. The characters were rude and not for a purpose that enhanced the book, they were just rude. This book didn't keep my attention at all. ( )

Clam Wake is a hilarious and enjoyable tale. Cozy mysteries are great summer reads, murder written with snarky dialogue and occurring in unusual places, like a retirement home.

Clam Wake is just such a novel. Mary Daheim, a USA Today and New York Times bestselling novelist, is a prolific writer and has many more mysteries just waiting to be read by me and you.

I saw the cover and it made me think of Cape Cod, so I had to read it. I have spent many summer vacations walking the flats and digging for clams. I can smell the odor of rotting vegetation when the tide goes out. I try to outrace the tide as it comes roaring in, much faster than most people anticipate. At first it is just lapping at my feet, then my ankles, then my knees……More than once, I have swam, instead of walked back in.

Cousins, Judith and Renie are house-sitting on Whoopee Island for their aunt and uncle, while they vacation.

Judith is an innkeeper and Renie, her best friend and cousin, works from home doing computer design. Even with their responsibilities, they have flexibility. Their many adventures seem to be because they are in the right place at the right time, or maybe, the wrong place at the wrong time. It depends on how you look at it.

Judith – funny, inquisitive and kind hearted. She seeks truth and justice with her amateur sleuthing. She is logical and a problem solver.

Renie – snarky with her sharp and cutting comments. She is very protective of Judith. She is always blurting out inappropriate jokes and I can’t help but laugh. She has a bottomless stomach and a vivid imagination. She is a character after my own heart and I fell in love with her.

Victim – hasn’t an enemy. Everyone liked him. Then why did a big knife take him out?

Judith even has her own fan club – FASTO – Female Amateur Sleuth Tracking Offenders. Her murder solving capabilities are well known, so when there is a murder at the retirement home, you can be sure her and Renie are going to be hot on the trail.

I know they are headed for trouble and I am eager to help them find their way out of it.

Clam Wake is a small town with all those pesky little secrets small communities harbor. The biggest hobby seems to be gossiping.

The retirement community does not have odd people, it has eccentrics.

I have listened to my hubby tell of the beach life on Cape Cod and the game of musical houses all the parents would play. His parents would host the cocktail hour one night, someone else the next, someone else the next….You get the idea. I am sure a great time was had by all. ^_^

Clam Wake is a fun mystery with a plot within a plot. Mary Daheim kept me wondering – who did it? I didn’t figure it out. Not because of a bunch of bells and whistles, just a lot of suspects that Mary twisted and turned around, keeping me guessing. Hmmmm, that doesn’t happen to me very often. Because of the great writing, easy reading and my inability to figure out the killer ahead of time, I must give this cozy mystery a 5 star rating. Very good, Mary.

“I’m wondering about these Obsession Shores people. Do the retirees just sit around during the winter and wait for the cocktail hour?”

“Hey – I know a good game – ‘Categorize the killers.’ Let’s start with Crazy as a Bedbug and work our way up to Jolly as Old Saint Nick.”

I received this novel in return for an honest and unbiased review. ( )