Lorelei’s Secret by Carolyn Parkhurst
Sceptre 2004, 288 pages
Linguist Paul Iverson arrives home one day to find that his wife, Lexy, has fallen to her death from an apple tree in their garden. The only witness to the incident was their dog Lorelei, but in the house are a number of strange clues that could only have been left by Lexy. Did she fall or had she in fact taken her own life? In order to understand what happened, Paul attempts to teach the dog to talk.
Here’s one which somehow slipped under my radar and so I’m very grateful to Reading Matters for bringing to my attention a book which I consider near perfect. If you are thinking it sounds like a load of old tosh, believe me this is worth reading for the inventiveness of the story alone. Essentially a love story, there is also a mystery to solve and all the clues are contained within the pages. Being a bit of a folkie (no beard yet), I have long held a copy of Fairport Convention’s Liege & Lief and “Tam Lin” is one of my favourtite tracks, but the full meaning of the song has always eluded me, not any more – “You are my finest knight” – read it and be prepared to shed a tear.
Library books don’t always get treated with the respect they deserve and this copy is looking a bit tired. In the top corner of the cover I noticed some little indentations, the sort of marks which are made by teeth and I wondered could they have been made by a dog……
