Wolf Pear

The serial killer

The psychic detective

The deadly garden that holds all the secrets

Latest Review (2017) – Jacqui Murray – Vine Voice

Creative storyteller with amazing descriptive skill – five stars

We meet Esther Crooke, the heroine of Dianne Gray’s Wolf Pear (Amazon Digital Services 2011) as she is burying a dead body in her backyard. As she finishes, her family arrives for a short visit and spends most of the time berating her for being overweight and single. This despite Esther’s success at starting and running her own bakery. We quickly find out Esther is part of a very odd family.

“He promised to return it [something Esther’s father borrowed] and must have driven by that afternoon and thrown it out of the car window on his way past because he couldn’t be bothered stopping. He always did things like that.”

Her sister allows her baby to fountain urine into the air while she’s changing him–and thinks it’s cute. Her mother tries to match-make Esther wth an ex-con by inviting him to breakfast at Esther’s house:

“Danny Thurlong scratched at his egg-shaped head. His hair was cut short at the top and stringy… Danny agreed as a piece of toast flicked from his mouth back onto his plate.”

I cheered when Esther rejected Danny:

“‘It’s been nice meeting you, but it’s time to leave and please don’t come back.’ His mouth hung open like a cave. ‘But, I fought…’ ‘Don’t think. Just leave.’”

Luckily, she does get relief from this odious family while working, though the dead body buried in her garden continues to haunt her.

But Esther isn’t the whole story. There’s JD, the troubled policemen taking a compassionate leave in an effort to make peace with the murder of his brother. JD, who can’t stand human touch but can talk to dead people, voices that seek him out, begging him to bring justice to their murderers. Despite being on vacation from work, he quickly realizes that the man who killed his brother is a serial killer and it’s up to JD to stop him.

Both JD and Esther are appealing multidimensional characters. They have guts and humility despite their inter-personal problems. Besides creative plotting and strong storytelling skills, what sets Gray’s writing apart is her rich descriptions, like few I’ve read:

“Mossy rocks and bird-catching spider-webs marred his path. Parrots exploded from the trees like green and red fireworks. The only narrow corner he could find wasn’t as narrow as he expected. It was deep and traversed by a dirt road used by anglers to launch small dinghies.”

“…trees like tired soldiers tranquilly watched him pass without a breath of wind.”

Highly recommended for those who like understanding the people behind the story.