Helen Hath No Fury: An Amanda Pepper Mystery (Amanda Pepper Mysteries) - Hardcover

Roberts, Gillian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0345429338 ISBN 13: 9780345429339

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 2000

Synopsis

In the stately nineteenth-century homes on Philadelphia's Delancy Street, the wilder passions scarcely ruffle the peace. Murder is unimaginable, particularly a murder involving an upscale book discussion group, of which schoolteacher Amanda Pepper is a devoted member.

Nevertheless, on the day after a heated discussion of a fictional heroine's suicide, book group member Helen Coulter falls to her death from her roof garden. Helen's death is declared a suicide—a shocking end to a perfect life—but Amanda is skeptical. In the course of recording the group's memories of Helen, inconsistencies and questions arise—and Amanda becomes convinced that Helen Coulter did not take her own life.

Why is this admirable woman dead? And if she was killed, who performed the heinous act? Helen's life was not an open book, but somewhere among its startling subplots Amanda believes she'll find the answers. Amanda's investigations will draw her into a zone of great danger, where Helen Coulter's ice-hearted killer is once more ready to strike.

Like all Gillian Roberts's novels, Helen Hath No Fury is a lot like life—scary, fun, and fascinating. Roberts remains "the Dorothy Parker of mystery writers . . . giving more wit per page than most writers give per book." *

*Nancy Pickard

About this title

Review:

Helen Hath No Fury, the latest outing in Gillian Roberts's Amanda Pepper series (which also includes, most recently, The Bluest Blood and Adam and Evil), finds the Philly Prep English teacher in familiar territory, negotiating the strong egos and stronger opinions of the members of her book club. When, after reading The Awakening, Helen Coulter vehemently denounces heroine Edna Pontellier's suicide as the ultimate cop-out, no one is surprised by her assertiveness (Helen makes sandpaper seem soft). But her plunge from the roof of her house the very next day comes as an awakening of the rudest sort. Although her death is ruled a suicide, the book-club members aren't buying it. When Amanda heads up an unofficial team of sleuths, she quickly realizes that her fellow booklovers have a great deal to hide--from Helen's business partner's bizarre financial dealings to a politician's wife's unsavory past. But are their secrets worth killing to keep?

People simply aren't what they seem, and that's enough to make Amanda long for order and precision: "I envision us like billiard balls--one gets poked and the rest of us are pushed into new and unexpected positions. My version of chaos theory. But now, I renounced happenstance. I became a devout cause-and-effect believer. I needed to." As always, she enlists cop and live-in amour C.K. Mackenzie (attention to devoted fans: the mystery of those darned initials will be solved at last!) to help her ferret out the truth.

What is usually a winning combination for Roberts--breezy humor and a lighthearted writing style--falls a little flat in this latest effort. Amanda reminds one of Lucille Ball--sardonic, goodhearted, a trifle insecure, and completely incapable of standing peacefully by when an opportunity to leap in and meddle presents itself. She has a finely honed sense of irony and an equally sharp appreciation of the absurd. This time around, her appeal is oddly muted; she seems less interested and less interesting, content to repeat ad nauseam her fervent desire for matters to improve and to dither about whether her newly kindled interest in marriage means that she is (gasp!) becoming her mother. With any luck, this stint in the narrative doldrums will be temporary, and the old Amanda will soon return with all sails flying. --Kelly Flynn

From the Back Cover:

"I'm not convinced that anyone offers better one-liners than those delivered by Amanda Pepper."
--Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine

About this edition

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0345429338
• ISBN 13: 9780345429339
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240