Three Wishes by Liane Moriarty

Review by Mirah Welday (mwelday)

Liane Moriarty is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers. First I read and thoroughly enjoyed The Husband’s Secret and now I’ve experienced Three Wishes.   Three Wishes brings us face to face with the Kettle triplets who are celebrating their 33^rd birthdays.  The triplets are funny and frustrating.  I love them on one page and on another page I want to scream at them.  But all of this love/hate makes for an interesting novel that isn’t predictable.  Moriarty created strong female characters with their own methods of dealing with stress, happiness, and trauma.

The Kettle triplets (Cat, Lyn, and Gemma) are deeply connected but they each want to be individuals.  Their relationships with one another can be tumultuous and heartbreaking; however, they are also fiercely loyal to one another.  Each sister has her role to play and any move to break out of that role can be difficult and lead to resentment. I believe Gemma was my favorite character; a free spirit with hidden depths of intelligence and emotion, Gemma was, in my opinion, the most interesting and least predictable triplet.

Dispersed throughout the novel are memories other people have of the triplets at different times in their lives.  Having these strangers’ accounts of moments in the triplets’ lives (seeing them in a restaurant or on the beach) allows the reader to see how the triplets unknowingly impacted the lives of strangers around them.

Moriarty writes with an authenticity and a sense of authority on human relationships.  Her characters are realistic and have qualities we may see in ourselves or loved ones.  Moriarty puts a lens to these qualities and makes us reevaluate our own actions and thoughts without being condescending or obvious.

I enjoyed my brief time with the Kettle triplets. Now my big question is what Liane Moriarty novel should I read next?

Death Comes to Perigord by John Ferguson

Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)

Young Dr. Dunn arrives on the sunlit Channel Island of Guernsey to substitute for a doctor in need of a spot of rest. The doctor is taken with scenery, which reminds him of the Near East:

Why look, for instance, at this very road, so long and narrow, stretching between those high blank walls, with invisible houses and hidden people behind them, I suppose. And look at those tall palm trees which seem to be peering over the walls as if stretching their necks, watching for something to happen in this deserted alley. Look at those shadows too, sharply cut as if by a knife in this brilliant white, un-English sunlight; and look at the colour, is that not Eastern?

Later he witnesses in the village square an old peasant woman railing against her rich neighbor de Quettville for stealing her garden statue. When the doc makes a house-call in aid of de Quettville, he finds him a cantankerous impossible patient but not necessarily mentally ill. Miser and usurer de Quettville mysteriously disappears. Dunn and two city officials and work on the case, in which psychiatric forensics plays a part:

The workings of a disordered mind are hard to follow, but it is an error to suppose an insane person cannot conceive, and adhere to a purpose. There is method in madness; and with homicidal lunatics the doctor frequently becomes an object of intense hatred, the first enemy who must be removed before the original murderous intention can be achieved.

Dunn is driven to ask his asked his friend McNab, a private investigator, to clear up the mystery. The reveal, though predictable, satisfies.

As the passages above indicate, the suggestive setting, smart content, and elegant prose style result in a fine mystery from the Golden Age. Unfortunately for the author, many writers were trying their hand at the genre in the late Twenties and early Thirties and so this book was overlooked by critics and readers. It sunk out of sight until Dover Publications re-released it in the 1980s. It is fairly easily found on Paperback Swap.