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Gag me with a wooden spoon: a book review of 'Shadows of Lancaster County' by Mindy Starns Clark
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“Caveat emptor” is going to be my motto for anytime I feel an urge to buy a book at Sam’s Club. If I had studied it closer I would have noticed that the main description of this novel was ‘Inspirational’ and not ‘mystery’ which I had assumed ‘Shadows of Lancaster County’ was from the title, the back blurb, and the cover. Of course it did state at the bottom of the back blurb, “Mindy Starns Clark offers another suspenseful standalone mystery, one full of Amish simplicity, dark shadows, and the light of God’s amazing grace.” If you give up reading this review after reading the preceding sentence, believe me I understand.
Few books can “inspire” one to wish all of the major characters were blown up in a propane explosion, but this one manages to do just that and more. The premise starts with Anna Bailey, who is in her late twenties living in L.A. with an older friend/roommate/coworker and working as a skip tracer (someone who tracks down people through the Internet). After coming home from a jog she receives a phone call from her sister-in-law (formally Amish) who informs her that her brother is missing she has difficulty listening to the conversation because of the racket going on the floor above. After the phone call Anna goes upstairs to see why her roommate was making so much noise. That is when she is attacked by a man wanting to know where the “Beauharnais Rubies” are. She has no idea what he is talking about and through cunning she has him chase her until he steps on a weak board on the back porch which he falls through.
In all seriousness ‘Shadows’ started out with a decent storyline although the writing was below par, the Christian references nauseating, and the main character painfully stupid and whiny. You see, the reason Anna was living out on the left coast was because she was trying to hide her identity. When she was seventeen she and some friends were having a campfire party. Her brother, the one who is missing, was secretly seeing an Amish girl (whom he later married) and would signal to her by using Roman candles. One thing led to another, there was some drinking, possible sex, a joint (I know, I know horrifying, but it manages to traumatize Anna) and one of the roman candles burns down the Amish girl’s house killing her parents and her new sibling that her mother had just given birth to. Gracious.
Even though Anna was asleep in a truck when the fire started (she was devastated that the guy she was crushing on all summer broke out a dubie) she and her friends were held responsible because a Roman candle appeared to have started the blaze. For all of her adult life she has held a grudge against the press for what she felt was railroading the incident as some sort of orgy. Anna even makes mention that she suffered prejudice at her high school because everyone jumped to conclusions that she was a ‘bad girl’ just because she was at a party which seemed to have resulted in the death of three people. Oh, if that wasn’t self-pitting enough, she gets miffed by her roommate, who was injured by the intruder, when the woman suggests that she doesn’t know if she wants to continue to live with Anna because she didn’t know her past. I forget the exact quote, but Anna’s whinny response is something as, “As if she didn’t know the true me, the good character I was, from years of living with me.”
Overall, ‘Shadows’ was marred not only with bad writing, but it was mixed with an annoying main character (she represented the subcategory of Christians that talk about forgiveness and God’s will, yet tend to see themselves as victims of various elements…as if their hearts are pure with God’s love thus they can tweak certain social morays such as being miffed that their hospitalized roommate might be concerned that you have a prison record for negligent manslaughter that you have conveniently not shared with her).
Of course the villain/s of the story are all stereotypical types of people that paranoid people tend to be afraid of. Goodness, a doctor who tampers with human DNA? Gee, I hope he doesn’t say something lame like ‘HE IS GOD’ or something. I wonder if that hippy divorced mother of Anna’s best friend who doesn’t sound like her elevator goes up to the top floor might be hiding something? For one, she cheated on her husband which resulted in d-i-v-o-r-c-e. (Shake head in judgment.) Two, she wasn’t mother of the year material for said best friend who has ended up in a loveless marriage and is an alcoholic – perhaps I shouldn’t mention that later in the story it is revealed that she is also dying of cancer. Don’t worry it gets better when we discover that hippy dippy mom, who is called the ‘Floater’ because she wears hippy dippy fashion, not only set the original fire that killed the ever forgiving superhero and aren’t they cute and sturdy Amish family; but she also gave her daughter cancer all in the name of science. (Now you can really shake your head in judgment.) Damn hippies!
Speaking of fashion, Clark has as much talent for writing about fashion as she does for making her characters anywhere near believable. At one point Anna receives some clothes and shoes for a funeral (I would explain it, but trust me, it would give you a headache) “…and a lovely pair of black pumps with a modest gold buckle at each toe.” (page 246) What The Fudge? Seriously, what the fudge? Can you even picture that? What sort of disturbing fashion magazine does Clark read? God knows what they sell on those at home shopping networks. I wonder if it is God’s will for her characters to have the fashion sense of over-the-hill but still working strippers?
I suppose it would be overkill if I mentioned that Anna’s nephew is not only a recipient of illegal in utero gene therapy but was also given Klinefelter Syndrome on purpose? I probably do need to mention that there is some other mystery involving an ancestor of Anna’s that could have been a duke or something by way of Napoleon Bonaparte. I will also reveal, because I feel bratty, that there is an Amish teen experiencing Rumspringa who Anna encourages to tell his family that he is going to quit the Amish way of life in order to play guitar in a Praise band (Christian rock). To be honest, if I was the older sister who raised him after his folks burned to death, I would wish a career in porn for him over playing in a Praise band, but then again I’m not Amish.
As stated earlier, what is truly tragic about ‘Shadows of Lancaster County’ is that it has a workable storyline until it falls apart in the end. To be kind, I admit that it is the best book I’ve read featuring Amish characters in the last four days. Clark’s writing was dull as if she had to explain the obvious and coast on what she herself didn’t understand scientifically. At places I also spotted major editing errors of the ‘to versus too’ variety. I would recommend this book if you are stupid or afraid of hippies and scientists (especially hippies who are scientists) otherwise I would suggest skipping it.
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