barbara fister reviewed Noble Wife by Amy Suiter Clarke
Review of 'Noble Wife' on 'LibraryThing'
A woman who grew up in a small town dominated by a fundamentalist church escapes to the big city (or cities, in this case: it's Minnesota, where the big city has a twin) but returns when a man she once loved dies. She's worried about being drawn back into the cult, but she's convinced the death didn't happen the way the church says, so she stays to solve the mystery. returnreturnThere were things to like about this novel - Del has a realistically hardscrabble life, as do so many people who have school debt and few prospects, a nice change from protagonists who seem magically free of money concerns - but I found it hard to quite fix who Del really was, given she sometimes seemed like the classic small town amateur sleuth but at other times was in a thriller. Nothing wrong with mixing sub-genres, but for me her …
A woman who grew up in a small town dominated by a fundamentalist church escapes to the big city (or cities, in this case: it's Minnesota, where the big city has a twin) but returns when a man she once loved dies. She's worried about being drawn back into the cult, but she's convinced the death didn't happen the way the church says, so she stays to solve the mystery. returnreturnThere were things to like about this novel - Del has a realistically hardscrabble life, as do so many people who have school debt and few prospects, a nice change from protagonists who seem magically free of money concerns - but I found it hard to quite fix who Del really was, given she sometimes seemed like the classic small town amateur sleuth but at other times was in a thriller. Nothing wrong with mixing sub-genres, but for me her character didn't totally hang together. The social setting - a small town with a big church that runs everything, including law enforcement and main street business - was a real stretch for me. I probably would have bought it if it were in another state - Arkansas or Idaho, maybe - but I live in Minnesota and it just didn't feel like Minnesota. returnreturnWhile I found it very readable, I found it hard to believe wholeheartedly in the characters and the setting, which brought it down a notch.