Evanly Bodies

✍ Scribed by Rhys Bowen

• Publisher: Minotaur Books
• Year: 2006
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 129 KB
• Category: Fiction

✦ Synopsis

Detective Constable Evan Evans and his new bride, Bronwen, are settling into married life in their little cottage above the village of Llanfair when they meet the daughter of one of the village's newest families, a sixteen-year-old Pakistani girl named Jamila. Bronwen and Jamila are becoming good friends when Jamila finds out from her parents that they have arranged a marriage for her back in Pakistan. Evans tries to convince her family not to enforce the custom, arguing that Jamila is a normal Welsh teenager, but just as the tensions increase, the girl suddenly vanishes. Bronwen is distraught, but there's no trace of her.

At work, Evans is investigating the murder of a man shot to death through the open window of his home while eating breakfast. After the man's wife is jailed as a suspect, a second man is killed---and then a third---and Evans and his team are on the hunt for a serial killer. But they can't seem to find any connections between the three men….

In the surprising climax of Edgar Award finalist Rhys Bowen's tenth Constable Evans mystery, Evans risks everything to solve the murders and discover what happened to Jamila. All in all, the novel is a triumph for fans of Bowen's acclaimed Evans series, and a wonderful discovery for new readers.

From Publishers Weekly

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. (Aug.)
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From Booklist

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. David Pitt
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