New Book Alert: The Bird in the Window by Wendy Dalrymple; Beautiful and Suspenseful Short Novel About Missing Persons and Forbidden Love

 

New Book Alert: The Bird in the Window by Wendy Dalrymple; Beautiful and Suspenseful Short Novel About Missing Persons and Forbidden Love

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: It's no secret that this year, I have been reviewing a lot of supernatural horror, dark fantasy, and psychological thrillers. I want the Readers to understand the full scope of my meaning. Despite the passages describing missing persons, domestic and child abuse, secret forbidden love affairs, and decades long unsolved murders, Wendy Dalrymple's short novel, The Bird in the Window is actually one of the more light hearted books that I have read this year.

The Bird in the Window is a tense and suspenseful offering where the cliffhangers and thrills are in all the right places. But it is also a beautiful, almost lyrical short novel about love and justice having to wait until the right time to be resolved.

Ashley Jones, a divorcee and newcomer to her Sarasota, Florida neighborhood is curious about the beautiful blue and yellow macaw that is perched on a nearby unassuming second story house. Her neighbor and friend, Patience, explains that house has a history (what house doesn't in these type of stories?). In 1984 Deputy Dirk DeLacroix killed his wife, Carmen, and daughter, Melissa, in that house and was never charged. His brother, the sheriff, declared that Mrs. DeLacroix ran off and took the kid with her, so case closed.

Well this story is like cat nip to Ashley, who has a fondness for true crime stories and unsolved mysteries. So she puts on her Nancy Drew hat and starts asking questions about this mysterious case. In particular, she asks Grandma Sally, an elderly eccentric, who knows a great deal about what happened in the DeLacroix home. Unfortunately, all this curiosity gets Ashley in big trouble and she receives threatening notes and slashed tires that tell her to mind her own business and leave this case alone.

One thing that brightens this story is the Florida setting. Murder mysteries in a warm tropical setting are often filled with some of the most enchanting and beautiful description and The Bird in the Window is no exception. The details from the beautiful colorful macaw that flies in and out of the story to the odor of hibiscus and other Florida based flowers capture the senses. 

Grandma Sally's home is described as such: "The white and pink bungalow was fairly well-kept, especially considering that the homeowner was not all there in the head. Peach hibiscus bushes lined the front entryway, and a perfectly manicured rock garden dotted with ornamental grasses created a warm and welcoming look."

The other reason that I like the setting is a more personal one. My mom grew up in Tampa and my grandparents lived there until their deaths in 1996 and 2009. The descriptions of the houses and flora and fauna of this setting recaptures childhood memories of visiting them and going to the beaches and theme parks of my youth.

In these type of novels, the suspense works when we care about the characters and Dalrymple gives us a character to empathize with as she investigates this story of the past. Ashley is such a brilliant amateur detective, that it would be interesting if Dalrymple began a cozy mystery series starring Ashley. 

Ashley is the right lead that you would find in this type of situation. She is plucky, curious, and lets her imagination run away with her. When she tells a colleague about her discoveries of the DeLacroix house, he reminds her of the time that she insisted that she lived near a drug dealing ring. (Okay it wasn't a ring, she admits, but they were dealing drugs.) 

Ashley has a somewhat rocky personal life. Even though Ashley is on somewhat friendly terms with her ex husband, she is nervous about starting a new relationship. A fling with her co worker, Nathan, is getting out of control and there is a handsome neighbor, Jason, who captures her eye. The mystery is a distraction from her complocated private life.

 Ashley also has a sense of justice. Another reason that this case fascinates her is her anger that DeLacroix got away with murder. As she sees the macaw, Ashley feels compelled to solve the case. The macaw serves as a symbol of how crimes of the past can not stay hidden forever. Eventually, the truth will come forward loud, bright, and clear.

Of course this is the type of mystery where everyone else has secrets not just the mysterious house or the amateur detective. Ashley's friend, Patience seems to be happily married friendly head of the community, but one look at one of the police officers investigating Ashley's stalker and she falls into a dead faint. She remembers a former boyfriend with whom she dated when she was single and then tempted her to temporarily stray from her marriage.

The biggest most heartbreaking secret of all concerns Grandma Sally and her connections with the DeLacroix Family. While Ashley sees an unsolved mystery of people that she doesn't know, Sally sees the loss of her one true love. Sally was a surrealist artist and lived openly with female lovers. She lived a wild bohemian life in New York and the Southwest, until a teaching job opened up at Ringling School of Art in Sarasota. She taught art while befriending the lovely Carmen DeLacroix.

Sally empathized with Carmen's culture shock about living in America and her stormy unhappy marriage to Dirk DeLacroix. A friendship begins in which Carmen unloads about her husband's abuse and unfaithfulness. The friendship eventually turns to love between equal partners until the day that Carmen was killed. When Ashley informs the older woman about her investigation, Sally promises Carmen's spirit that DeLacroix will pay. This story makes Sally and Carmen the most fascinating characters in the book.

The suspense is in all the right places. The note and slashed tires are truly tense moments. When Ashley looks at the DeLacroix home, she sees a sinister silhouette in the window. She knows that someone, probably DeLacroix, is threatening her.

The climax builds to some interesting conclusions. One revelation us particularly memorable and terrifying. Another one however falls flat and stretches credibility more than a bit. But still the ending is satisfactory as justice is finally met, the bad guys get punished and the good guys are finally vindicated.

While The Bird in the Window has some terrifying and graphic moments of suspense and violence, in the end it reminds the Reader that sometimes things work out. It takes time but the guilty are punished, love is found, and mysteries are solved.