Shady Hollow
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- ¥1,400
発行者による作品情報
The first book in the Shady Hollow series, in which we are introduced to the village of Shady Hollow, a place where woodland creatures live together in harmony—until a curmudgeonly toad turns up dead and the local reporter has to solve the case.
Reporter Vera Vixen is a relative newcomer to Shady Hollow. The fox has a nose for news, so when she catches wind that the death might be a murder, she resolves to get to the bottom of the case, no matter where it leads. As she stirs up still waters, the fox exposes more than one mystery, and discovers that additional lives are in jeopardy.
Vera finds more to this town than she ever suspected. It seems someone in the Hollow will do anything to keep her from solving the murder, and soon it will take all of Vera’s cunning and quickness to crack the case.
A VINTAGE CRIME/BLACK LIZARD ORIGINAL
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The various animals who make up the community of Shady Hollow might as well be human in the pseudonymous Black's disappointing debut and series launch. For example, the panda named Sun Li, who runs the local Chinese restaurant, has a backstory that could apply, without any changes, to a person. Sun Li was once a "respected surgeon," until the death, during a routine operation, of the prime minister's son. He lost his license and joined a monastery before settling in Shady Hollow to serve vegetarian fare. The placid community is filled with other animals who act like people and generally live in peace. Then the Otto Sumpf, a cantankerous toad, turns up dead in the pond, belly up with a knife in his back. This shattering crime is probed by reporter Vera Vixen, a fox, whose amateur sleuthing eventually leads to the truth. Inadequate worldbuilding is fatal to engagement with a pedestrian plot. There's not much to recommend this one.
