My Brother Michael by Mary  Stewart

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Mystery, Suspense
Content: Clean
 

Camilla Haven is on holiday alone, and wishes for some excitement. She had been sitting quietly in a crowded Athens cafe writing to her friend Elizabeth in England, "Nothing ever happens to me..."

Then, without warning, a stranger approached, thrust a set of car keys at her and pointed to a huge black touring car parked at the curb. "The car for Delphi, mademoiselle... A matter of life and death," he whispered and disappeared.

From that moment Camilla's life suddenly begins to take off when she sets out on a mysterious car journey to Delphi in the company of a charming but quietly determined Englishman named Simon Lester. Simon told Camilla he had come to the ancient Greek ruins to "appease the shade” of his brother Michael, killed some fourteen years earlier on Parnassus. From a curious letter Michael had written, Simon believed his brother had stumbled upon something of great importance hidden in the craggy reaches of the mountainside.

And then Simon and Camilla learned that they were not alone in their search...

This is the 8th book I've read by Mary Stewart and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I was pleased that it was set in Greece like her book The Moonspinners, which happens to be my favorite out of all her books so far. Mary Stewart was once again able to capture the essence of a place and make me feel like I was there, which is one of the strong points of her novels; that is when it doesn't interfere too much with the storytelling. Most of this book is set in beautiful Delphi which I would love to visit someday among lots of other places in Greece.



It's always interesting to read books that were written in this time period (1959). I love picturing the cars and the clothing from that time as I read. Can you imagine hiking through the mountains in a dress? Also there were so many cigarettes smoked that I'm certain every one of the characters eventually die from lung disease, but back then it was the thing to do and they didn't yet know the devastating health issues smoking could cause. It did seem like there was more smoking in this book than in most of her other works though.

This book managed to be good once the story really got going, but it did take a bit too long for that to happen, which is why I can't give this one a complete 4 stars. There was mild romance and quite a bit of suspense before the end which was all good, and a murder that takes place on the page instead of just being discovered. I admit I found the way it was done a little disturbing. As for the characters, the protagonist was easy to like and so was the love interest, and Stewart managed to write a character in this book that I found downright irritating, but that's the way she was supposed to be so it was all good.

This book also involved ancient Greek art, namely statues that were very rare because few of them survived the war. One in particular, The Charioteer, is featured in this book and it was described so well that I had to look it up to see what it looked like, especially when the eyes are described.





Overall this was a good read, if slow to get going and I would rank it 5th on my list of Mary Stewart books, pretty much even with Wildfire at Midnight. I liked the protagonist better in this one, but Wildfire at Midnight was more suspenseful.

1. The Moonspinners
2. Nine Coaches Waiting
3. Madam Will You Talk?
4. The Ivy Tree
5. My Brother Michael
6. Wildfire at Midnight
7. Airs Above the Ground
8. The Stormy Petrel