Evanly Bodies

June 19, 2006
In Edgar-finalist Bowen's delightful 10th novel to feature her Det. Constable Evan Evans (after 2004's Evan's Gate
), the serene North Wales village of Llanfair is again roiled by intrigue and murder. Evan's worries begin when his schoolteacher wife, Bronwen, introduces him to Jamila, a London-born teenager of Pakistani descent who pleads for their help after she learns that her radical Muslim brother has persuaded their parents to take her back to Pakistan to be married. Evan has also been assigned to a new task force just as a wave of homicides spreads through the district—three men murdered, all in the same manner with the same elusive weapon. Yet the team is stumped to find a connection among any of the victims. Meanwhile, Jamila vanishes and Bronwen and Evan fear the worst. Bowen sparkles in this cleverly concocted puzzler.

May 1, 2006
The tenth Evan Evans novel shakes things up a little. Evans, the police officer in the small Welsh town of Llanfair, is a married man now, and he's partnered with an abrasive (and not especially bright) senior officer. As readers familiar with this series know, Evans can't tolerate stupidity, but will he let his antipathy for the pompous Detective Inspector Bragg get in the way of solving a murder? As usual, Bowen's charming sense of humor and her affectionate portrayal of Llanfair and its residents are the main attractions. Reading this one is like getting together with an old, dear friend.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)