Murder in G Major by Alexia GordonMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
What I liked
I liked the characters even though I can't for the life of me say most of their names outloud. I'm not a little intimidated to go to Irland for fear of misprouncing their names. Their personalities were driverse and interesting.
The main character Gethsemane is a breath of fresh air. She's an African American amiture detective who isn't just waring her black heritage and culture on her sleeve like a shield. She's black but it doesn't have to color her every intereaction.
Gethsemane reminds me of my elementary school Music Appreciation teacher, Ms. Reed.
Ms. Reed was black and proud, elegant, and beautiful black woman who was always classy, and confident. She didn't "speak black" or "walk-the-walk". She glided, and spoke well and with elegance. She was the only black teacher on in the art wing of my magnet school and I admired her. Now that I'm older I know how much hard the other teahers must have been watching her. She always closed her door, she said, to keep the music in and the noise out. But thinking back on how she taught out mixed race classes about black, brown and white, jazz musicians, black singers, dancers, and composers while also teaching us our scales, and musical vocabulary she was smart too. She played us music by Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, and Billie Holiday but taught us to sing The Sound of Music, and our scales so we'd leave singing appropriate white songs. Those jazz legends were taught to us on the same level as Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven in her class.
Gethsemane also does not present with the same "blackness" and Blanch White. In fact we are well into the third act before she brings how she was raised in a black neighborhood and all. We know that her family expects better of her, and that she won't return in shame. And that's is her driving force. The Irish characters to react to her race or ethniscity outside of her being an American. She is not treated differently by teacher or students, that is until she starts getting too close to heart of the mystery.
If you are looking for a good cozy mystery with a new kind of detective and don't want wall the grief and guilt that sometimes comes with black characters this is a great place to start.
What I loved
The setting in a haunted house! I love a little supernatural flair in my mystery. The hot headed ghost of a man who was murdered, and then accused of killing his own beloved wife is great driving point to this plot.
What hated
I didn't love some of Gethsemanes choices in this story. Like why did she hire the obviously fake psych? I didn't understand why she'd given that woman so much money when she had so little herself, especially knowing that her ghostly host would flip his lid at the sight of her.
I didn't understand telling everyone in town what she was doing? And talking about it opening in the resturant seemed sloppy in a smile town...but it did lead to some pretty hair raising tension so I give it a pass.
As far as hated, I have to say the ending! I hate me a cliff hanger something awful. I hate that I know have to buy a who new book to see how Gethsmane is going to free her friend.
Conclusion!
Great story, great driving plot! A real page turner that enjoyed living in. I like Gethsmane and the town she is living in. Alexia Gordon is great writer for characters, setting, and plot. It is smart to make a cliff hanger so that readers are drawn to read more books, I just don't like it being so compelled. I'm also frustrated for the ghost host who may be permenatly seperated from his beloved.
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