Today I am reviewing the third book in the Shady Hollow mystery series, which if you are unfamiliar with it, is a series occupied by anthropomorphic animals. I have previously reviewed the first two books on my blog: Shady Hollow (2015) and Cold Clay (2017). Going into Mirror Lake, I was curious as to how this writing duo would develop the initial puzzle setup as it has some intriguing possibilities.
Synopsis
‘Welcome, dear reader! You have happened upon the delightful village of Shady Hollow, a place where rabbits and raptors, squirrels and snakes live together in civilised accord . . . with only the occasional murder to mar the peace of daily life.
Keen journalist Vera Vixen is recovering from the Harvest Festival (and its bounty of local cheeses, cider and pies) when the calm is shattered by a scream from one of the small town’s grandest houses. Dorothy Springfield, a rat with a reputation for eccentricity, claims her husband – who is standing right next to her – has been murdered. Has Dorothy finally lost her grip on reality? Or is the rat who claims to be Edward an imposter? Vera’s fox nose scents a story. And it’s not long before the discovery of a body, minus the head, complicates things further . . .’
Overall Thoughts
The book kicks off with Vera Vixen and Deputy Orville Braun enjoying the harvest festival and I felt this was an effective scene to introduce new and familiar characters. Moreover, it includes the very true remark that: ‘Shopping for books was perhaps the greatest treasure hunt there was.’ The hobby of reading is a background theme in this novel, which leads to some dark revelations concerning Vera: ‘In truth, she had been known to fold over the corner of a page or two when a bookmark could not be located.’ Could I look at her the same way again? I was also intrigued by her choice of travel reading material later in the tale: ‘She had brought along a copy of Watership Down, and she was looking forward to a leisurely day of reading.’ I have not read this book, but I watched the film on TV for the first time in my mid 20’s. Boy is it grim and surprisingly violent! Would Watership Down be classed as a horror story in Vera’s universe, I wonder?
Back to the harvest festival, this opening scene also shows Braun getting so annoyed at his lazy boss that he publicly announces he will be running for the job of police chief in the upcoming elections. This development adds some interesting tension into the series, and it puts Vera in an awkward position at work. Her boss wants her to get insider information on Braun and his campaign. But if she does, due to her and Braun dating, her reputation as a journalist could be damaged due to potential accusations of bias. So, this is problem she has to dodge.
A will with particular stipulations may be motivating the events concerning Dorothy and Edward Springfield and to begin with I would say this case had more elements to it than the central mystery in book two. The plot initially throws in a number of disparate and odd events, so the reader is keen to find out how they connect up. Evidence to prove Dorothy is telling the truth, is very meagre to begin with. Progress often feels like two steps forward, one step back, as there is the issue of some evidence being destroyed.
Braun and Vera work much less together in this story, as for various reasons there is tension between them. However, this novel introduces a celebrity writer who is a wolf called Bradley Marvel. Bradley is egotistical and flirty with Vera, though I don’t think us as readers really buy in to the idea of him being a love rival. Nevertheless, his arrogance is used to make him look foolish and he is therefore a source of comedy within the narrative. I love the point when Vera in frustration says to him: “Now go back to Bramblebriar, pack your bags, and walk to the dock, because if you’re not on the next boat downriver, I’ll tell Orville to arrest you for being an idiot in public, which is against the law in Shady Hollow!”
My husband has also been reading this series, and is in fact ahead of me, having read the next book, Twilight Falls (2023). In Mirror Lake he appreciated the priority given to baked goods and the consumption of them. One of my favourite moments of this can be found near the end of the book:
‘Vera was too nervous to eat much of anything, and she wondered over and over again if she ought to have done something differently. Should she have told Orville not to run? Should she have quit her job to direct his campaign? Should she have a piece of pumpkin pie, and if so, should she have it with vanilla or maple ice cream? It was all very fraught.’
The case in Mirror Lake does eventually develop into a murder mystery, and I feel the dead body is found at an unexpected moment and it also does well in re-fuelling the plot, as well as adding a little more direction. However, I still would not say this is the most complicated of mysteries and I think it could be treated more like an inverted mystery, where a reader is looking to see how the guilty party will be unmasked. The confirmation of the guilty party could have been really clever, if a key piece of information had been better clued. As it stands, I am not sure how this clue would have fared in a court of law. Looking at the series as whole, I feel, as it has progressed, that the social life drama has increased, whilst the mystery complexity has lowered. Nevertheless, I think Juneau Black write very good characters and the dramatic conclusion to Mirror Lake was unexpected.
Rating: 4.25/5