Relics
A
Faye Longchamp Mystery
Mary Anna
Evans
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1-59058-119-9 (1590581199)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59058-119-3 (9781590581193)
Publication Date: August 2005
List Price: $24.95
Synopsis (from
the publisher): Faye Longchamp is digging out of her depth. Back in
school to pursue her dream of becoming an archaeologist, she has been
asked to run a project for which she is barely qualified, under the
direction of a man who doesn't seem to like her much. Her assignment -
to uncover the origins of a mysterious ethnic group of people called
the Sujose who have lived in Alabama's most remote hills for centuries
- is exciting and significant: the Sujosa have shown impressive
immunity to many diseases ... including AIDS.
When this startling fact is made public, research money begins to flow,
funding geneticists and historians and linguists and archaeologists
like Faye, who are tasked with finding out exactly where the Sujosa
originated and where they got those genes. Suddenly, these reclusive
and suspicious people, whose government has hardly managed to find the
money to keep their roads paved, are besieged by bereaucrats and
scientists - like Faye - and they clearly don't like it.
Late one night, Faye sleepily realizes that she is warm for the first
time since leaving home, but the cozy moment is interrupted by a
woman's scream. Faye is warm because the house is on fire. She saves
herself and one of her housemates, but her friend Carmen, the project
historian, never had a chance. Within days, an 18-year-old boy commits
suicide, jumping from a cell phone tower that, when completed, will
bring outside world into the Sujosa community.
Faye's archaeology skills at ferreting out the past may help her
unravel the two mysterious deaths, and they just might save her life.
She has few clues beyond her own intuition to tell her that the two
deaths are related, but the oral histories Carmen was compiling before
she died may hold the answers she needs.
Review: Mary Anna Evans' second Faye Longchamp book, Relics,
is an archaeological mystery within a murder mystery. Or maybe it's a
murder mystery within an archaeological mystery. Regardless, both work
on their own level and the result is a very good successor to Evans'
first entry in this series, Artifacts.
There is very little by way of introduction to Faye in Relics;
maybe the author assumed she covered this material in detail in the
first book (which she did). While intelligent and resourceful in both
books, it seems that the “Faye of Relics" is a very different character than the “Faye of Artifacts". The change in Faye between the two books isn't necessarily bad, but for those who read Artifacts before Relics, it would have helped to provide some background to this rather sudden character transition.
Clues to the solutions to both the archaeological puzzle and the
mysterious deaths are cleverly provided throughout the story, and the
result is a satisfactory conclusion to a detailed, well constructed and
written, mystery. Based on Evans' first two books, this promises to be
a very good series indeed.
Special thanks to Book Trends for providing an ARC of Relics for this review.
Review Copyright © 2005 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved.
Mysteries in this series ...
Artifacts
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover), April 2003
ISBN-10: 1-59058-056-7 (1590580567)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59058-056-1 (9781590580561)
Relics
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover), August 2005
ISBN-10: 1-59058-119-9 (1590581199)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59058-119-3 (9781590581193)
Effigies
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover), January 2007
ISBN-10: 1-59058-342-6 (1590583426)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59058-342-5 (9781590583425)
Findings
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover), July 2008
ISBN-10: 1-59058-483-X (159058483X)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59058-483-5 (9781590584835)
Omnimystery keywords for Relics ...
Location(s) referenced: Alabama.