Madam, Will You Talk?, by Mary Stewart
>> Tuesday, February 03, 2004
I tried Mary Stewart for the first time a few months ago, after seeing her recommended quite a few times. Since I liked the one I tried, I ordered quite a few more. The next I read, which I finished yesterday, was Madam, Will You Talk?.
Much of a strange and tragic drama of revenge, lust, fear, and death has already been played by the time Charity Selborne arrives at a plush resort in the South of France.This was really good. A B+.
But by befriending a terrified boy and catching the attention of his enigmatic, possibly murderous father, Charity has inadvertently placed herself center stage.
Reading Madam, Will You Talk felt like watching one of those old movies from the 50s, I don't know if I can describe the kind of novels I mean: those adventure-ish movies, with their protagonists running around some kind of Europe, bantering all the way. There was a certain scene in Marseille, when they are walking next to the sea, where I just saw one of those movies, the wet cobblestone streets, the people dressed in 50s clothes...
Charity was an amazing heroine. This was no passive damsel in distress. I mean, she got involved in the whole mess through no actions of her own, but once she was in, her role was very much an active one, and she made a wonderful kick-ass heroine. That scene where she drives a car like it is a weapon was awesome. Richard was more of a cypher (of course, since the story was told from Charity's POV), but a likeable one.
The only weak point was the improbability of it all. Much of the action required a high level of coincidence. From some of the things that happend, one could suppose that about 100 people in all live in the south of France!
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