Not as good as “First Fruits”
Penelope Evans is the master at writing first-person characters with serious character flaws who are living in denial and self-delusion. This one has Stewart, a morgue photographer, obsessed with the corpse of a beautiful drowning victim. Following his obsession leads him to unravel the mystery of her identity, all while being shunned by everyone he comes in contact with. Stewart is a serious outcast who everyone treats as a monster.
It’s not as good as “First Fruits.”After a while Stewart’s naivete gets a little tired, and conclusions which come as a great suprise to him will have been guessed by the reader dozens of pages beforehand. Also, it takes Evans about 100 pages to really get the story moving. Read First Fruits instead if you are curious about Penelope Evans, or The Wasp Factory if you want another story about outcasts living in delusional denial.
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