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Rating: 
Summary: A very complex mystery with a lot of suspects
Review: I give the book 4 stars rather than 5 primarily because I had trouble keeping track of the many characters and the geography -- just way too much to follow . But I decided not to bother figuring out "who dun it" (although a shrewd guess halfway through turned out to be correct) and just enjoy the trip. The plot involves the death of a man who was greatly loved but had a few enemies as well -- an upper class man who had returned from World War II a changed man, who became a Presbyterian minister and married an American pianist. He is found dead on Holy Island, apparently the victim of an accident, but there are circumstances that make those close to Reverend McLean question whether it was really an accident or murder. Ben Reese, an American archivist with a skill for solving mysteries, has already been called in to make an inventory of saleable items at a castle in Scotland owned by Reverend McLean's best friend, so he is asked to poke around and see if there is enough evidence to go to the police and ask for the case to be reopened. The strength of the book is in the literary skill of the author, although some of the dialogue seemed a bit to lyrical for the characters. This book kept me reading and wanting to know "who dun it." If you like Scottish settings, you'll probably like this book, although be warned, you're not going to read this book in one evening.
Rating:
Summary: A very complex mystery with a lot of suspects
Review: I give the book 4 stars rather than 5 primarily because I had trouble keeping track of the many characters and the geography -- just way too much to follow . But I decided not to bother figuring out "who dun it" (although a shrewd guess halfway through turned out to be correct) and just enjoy the trip. The plot involves the death of a man who was greatly loved but had a few enemies as well -- an upper class man who had returned from World War II a changed man, who became a Presbyterian minister and married an American pianist. He is found dead on Holy Island, apparently the victim of an accident, but there are circumstances that make those close to Reverend McLean question whether it was really an accident or murder. Ben Reese, an American archivist with a skill for solving mysteries, has already been called in to make an inventory of saleable items at a castle in Scotland owned by Reverend McLean's best friend, so he is asked to poke around and see if there is enough evidence to go to the police and ask for the case to be reopened. The strength of the book is in the literary skill of the author, although some of the dialogue seemed a bit to lyrical for the characters. This book kept me reading and wanting to know "who dun it." If you like Scottish settings, you'll probably like this book, although be warned, you're not going to read this book in one evening.
Rating: 
Summary: A surreal atmospheric mystery
Review: In 1961, Jonathan MacLean is a minister in the Scottish Church. He is happily married to the woman he loves and owns the ancestral estate Kilgarth. His best friend, Lord Alexander Chisholm, owns Balnagard Castle. The two buddies plan to take their annual trip together, which consists of roaming the countryside wherever their instincts lead them to travel. However, Jonathan dies from anaphylaxis reaction to bee venom. Alex believes that someone deliberately murdered his friend as the bees were found inside Jonathan's picnic basket. Alex is happy that another friend, intelligence officer Ben Reese is coming to Balnagard to appraise his heirlooms. When Ben arrives, he agrees to investigate Jonathan's death. Ben soon finds several viable suspects, but never anticipated that the killer might want to make him the next victim. Although the story line occurs less than four decades ago, there remains a surreal atmosphere, as if the events occurred in a previous century. The plot is compelling as PRIDE AND PREDATOR focuses on a monster wearing the respectable mask of sane civility that fools everyone except the likable hero. Sally Wright has the right stuff as she shows her story telling abilities to turn a mid-twentieth century who-done-it into a grand novel. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: Sally does it again
Review: She informed me and delighted me again! Intriguing plot and characters. A fine setting. And a decent mystery to boot! I had never thought of Scotland as a possible travel destination. Maybe after her depiction I might consider it. Not that she romanticizes it, she obviously just loves it because it is lovable. Plus there were so many amusing and beguiling Scots that I had the pleasure of meeting. Not to mention the depths of the human heart that I had to ponder when reading this (I thought I knew who the murderer was, but I really didn't want to believe it was who I thought it was--so I had to ponder my own heart's depth as well). I rarely reread mysteries, but I will return to this one again sometime. There's more to this than I could get on one time through.
Rating:
Summary: Sally does it again
Review: She informed me and delighted me again! Intriguing plot and characters. A fine setting. And a decent mystery to boot! I had never thought of Scotland as a possible travel destination. Maybe after her depiction I might consider it. Not that she romanticizes it, she obviously just loves it because it is lovable. Plus there were so many amusing and beguiling Scots that I had the pleasure of meeting. Not to mention the depths of the human heart that I had to ponder when reading this (I thought I knew who the murderer was, but I really didn't want to believe it was who I thought it was--so I had to ponder my own heart's depth as well). I rarely reread mysteries, but I will return to this one again sometime. There's more to this than I could get on one time through.
Rating:
Summary: Very very good!
Review: Some of the best new mystery fiction coming out today. I'm glad to see the adventures of Ben Reese moving forward--unlike most other modern 'mysteries,' this series doesn't rely on blood and guts or sex between the characters to keep the novel moving along--the mystery is the point of the book, and mystery is what you get. The plot is well thought out, and the clues well placed.
Rating: 
Summary: This book grew out of setting, not plot or character.
Review: When I'm asked how I get my book ideas, the best way I know to explain it is "character, setting, and plot." Bits and pieces have grown out of dreams, or eavesdropping, or family disasters - secondary characters or specific scenes - but not the organizing concepts. Publish And Perish, the first Ben Reese book, came right out of character - out of knowing a man who was an archivist in a university who'd also been a World War II Scout, and finding the contrast in those sides of his nature fascinating. Interesting enough at the very least to make me think of Ben Reese and construct the two sides of him. (See my discussion of Publish And Perish for more about Ben's beginnings.) As soon as I started writing Publish And Perish, I realized that Ben Reese had so many interests, and so much complexity in his own life and character, that I could write about him for a long time and not get bored. I thought about how he'd change over time, and the breadth of his work as an archivist, as well as all the places he could travel - and knew I wanted to watch him do it. I also decided, right then at the beginning, that, even though everything else would be fictional, whenever I described what Ben did in the war, it would be an accurate account of what my real-life friend lived through, as a tribute to him, and others like him, who did what I could never do, and suffered substantially because of it. All I knew about the second book was that I wanted to call it Pride And Predator, and it would start in a place I love. Because years before, in July 1988, on a rainy windy morning, I'd stood on Holy Island, a small grassy island off the coast of Northumberland, England, surrounded by the North Sea, with the ruins of a Benedictine priory behind me ("standing like yellowed lace against the sky in empty arches and winding stairs that led up into open air"). There I'd stared at Lindisfarne Castle, at the other end of the island, "crouched like a cat" on the top of Beblowe Rock "...a green mossy dolerite dike...like a small volcano or a giant barnacle...two hundred feet wide at the bottom and half as high," while a handful of sheep in their "matted winter wool" waddled below the cliffs. Right then, on Holy Island, for no reason I can explain, I imagined a man in three piece tweeds walking on the sandy path toward the castle. And I thought, "How could you get him here, all alone, very early in the morning, and kill him with no one around?" Now, I, for one, have never said that mystery novelists aren't peculiar. We must be to contemplate such things at all (though the writers I've met have seemed as harmless as most in the general population). Yet, there I stood, wondering how to kill-off a tall, strong, good looking Scotsman so no one would know it was murder. Which means setting set it in motion. It gave me the pictures inside my head that all my books have been born with. That led me to ask, "What kind of a plot would logically get him killed with no one else around?" Pride And Predator came out of that - the two years' worth of work it took to answer a simple question.
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