A Fly Has a Hundred Eyes

Aileen Baron has started a second career as an author writing mystery novels.  She was 76 years old when she wrote this book.  She had been an extremely successful archaeologist and professor at a California University.  Now she tried to take what she had been teaching and studying and write mystery stories.

I read her first novel, A Fly Has A Hundred Eyes.  I did not really enjoy this mystery novel.  It was jammed pact with historical and archaeological facts and information.  But, the author does not do as good a job with the dialog and the story line so the plot does not pull you into the story and the characters are well defined.  There are many characters so it is hard to keep track of who is who. Even the main character, Lily, who in the end is the one who solves the crimes, in a way, is not someone who the reader can identify with or relate to.

Then I mentioned to my book discussion group that though we had all not enjoyed this first book in the series, I wanted to give this author the benefit of the doubt, so I would read another of her mystery novels.  I went ahead and listened to The Scorpion's Bite as an audible book.  Actually it was funny that I had started listening to this mystery without realizing that it was by the same author as the book I had just read.  But again I was having trouble following the plot and understanding who each of the characters were.  I had to laugh to myself, when I realized that it was the second book in the same series.  I did finish listening to the book, but unfortunately came to the same conclusion.  Baron, is a very learned archaeologist and historian.  She knows her facts and dates.  But she has not perfected the suspense building technique that is most important when writing an mystery story.

Sadly I did read that Aileen Baron has passed.  She did write a few more novels, but will never have a chance to develop into a great mystery writer.  I do think it is great though that she tried and has left not only her legacy as an archaeologist and teacher, but someone who tried her hand at writing also.