Discovering the Body

by Mary Howard

Discovering the Body is a gripping novel filled with psychological suspense, sensitivity, and emotional complexity. With this stunning debut, Mary Howard has crafted an electrifying and hauntingly evocative novel of truth and perception, of the ties we tell others-and the lies we tell ourselves. Two years ago Linda Garbo left her graphic design job in Minneapolis to open a printmaking studio in a small town in Iowa with the encouragement of Luci Cole, a weaver and an old friend from art school. Arriving in Linden Grove for good, Linda agrees to stay with Luci and her boyfriend, Charlie, in their old farmhouse outside of town until the renovations to her new studio space are completed. But the following afternoon as she is driving down the long winding road toward Luci's house, Linda sees Luci's neighbor, Peter Garvey, walking out the front door-and when Linda enters the house a few minutes later, she discovers her friend's lifeless body on the kitchen floor. Now, two years later, Peter Garvey has been convicted of Luci's murder. Linda is married to Charlie and living in the very house where Luci died. And she is convinced someone is following her. As she begins to confront her fears-approaching the man she believes is spying on her, visiting Peter Garvey in prison-she finally faces the cause for her frequent panic she was too traumatized by her discovery of Luci's body to be a reliable witness. And if she's identified the wrong man, the killer may still be close by, ready to react if she admits she might have made a mistake. Compelled to unravel the mystery surrounding Luci's final days, Linda finds that Luci was a master at weaving her true colors into a complex tapestry, preferring involvements that required secrecy. A beautifully crafted tour de force of significant depth, passion, and power, Discovering the Body is a completely beguiling meditation on perception, loss, memory, and redemption whose conclusion proves to be as significantly haunting as it is satisfying.

Genres: Mystery Thriller, Fiction

294 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Though I was born in Iowa, I flew off to Southern California in my youth to live by the Pacific for a while and figure out where to go from there. Later I lived in Woodstock, Illinois, for years, a forty-minute train ride from downtown Chicago, on Lake Michigan. Attracted by water both times, I guess, and craving adventure. Now I live in Ames, Iowa, where I counseled students in the College of Design for seventeen years and raised two fabulous sons.

My novels are set in small Midwest towns. I have written three suspense (mystery) novels and am now working on a novel that is just as suspenseful, but focused on a provocative family secret, not involving a crime. I am fascinated by the extraordinary natures of my characters and strive to know them better page-by-page -- as they lead me on to a satisfying, and sometimes surprising, conclusion. I love imagining what it is like to be someone else. That requires compassion, as well as imagination.

My five favorite writers are Alice Munro, Ian McEwan, Anthony Dorr, Edith Pearlman, and Annie Proulx.

Reviews

[Courtney LeBlanc · Rating 1 out of 5]

The story opens and the murder has already occurred and we're thrust head first into the main character's world, one that revolves around obsessing over her supposed-sort of-best friend.

So many parts of this story just aren't quite believable. The main character, Linda, moves to a small town to set up her own business based on what appears to be, the strange insistence of a woman she was vague friends with during college. When that friend, Luci, is murdered shortly after Linda arrives and Linda witnesses the murderer leaving the scene, life gets complicated. We're dropped into the plot after all of this has happened but lead to believe Linda is obsessed with what happened - even though she went on to marry Luci's boyfriend. She goes to visit the murderer in prison (something that isn't fully developed), she embarks on a strange friendship with a journalist (even though she accused him of stalking her) and her new best friend's (who Linda doesn't really seem to be friends with, it seems very fake) husband destroys a piece of Linda's art. Overall there are a lot of small, parts woven in that never really come together well or feel like they truly fit.

[Deb Omnivorous Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a pleasant, well written, well planned novel which I enjoyed in a calm sort of way.

While I would not say it was especially 'thrilling' and I am dubious that it counts as a 'psychological suspense' it was a very good story. Linda Garbo is happily married to Peter living in a small town somewhere in America and running a art design business in town while Peter tends a bee business, it all seems so normal.

But their relationship did not start in a normal way. Two years ago Linda first moved to town at the suggestion of her college friend Luci, who was at the time, Peters live in girl friend. When Luci was brutal murdered, Linda found the body and was the main witness at the trial. The experience brought her and Peter together and now they are married.

But their relationship is not entirely easy, Linda feels that Peter has buried anger at Luci, while claiming that Linda is the one with problems. Then someone starts following Linda which leads to her re-examining the things she saw that day of the murder, things that she has seen since and the slowly evolving picture of Luci and her world begins to wreck everything that she thought she knew about the case.

The main pleasure in this book were the characters, I liked the development of them, I liked how fleshed out and real the world seemed. Not every singe event contributed to the plot, so the reader, like the characters is left sifting through daily events to determine the relevant from the mundane.

I did not so much like Linda's apparent willingness to trust everyone and anyone with everything and anything. I did feel she made a good 'real' character, but it was not a character I felt I had a relationship with. Many of her choices seemed insane.

Very much a slow burner, with a gently unraveling plot. Many threads of plot element are not really wrapped up and the ending is pretty much what I predicted in the first chapter. Though, kudos to the book, it managed to set up EVERYONE, including Linda and the person actually convicted as a possible murderer. So while I thought the ending might be obvious at first, I was successfully obfuscated for much of the book.

Nice, pleasant read.

[Lorileinart · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an uncovered gem of a book. Impeccably, impossibly written...stylish as hell.

[Marianne Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was really, really really good.

[Angela · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two years ago, Linda Garbo walked into her friend Luci's kitchen and found her dead on the floor. Linda's testimony was instrumental in convicting Peter Garvey, a local mechanic and Luci's secret lover, of the crime. But lately, Linda has been having flashes of memory, leading to doubts and second thoughts about her statements during the investigation and at trial. Was it really Peter Garvey she saw outside the house that day? Or was it someone else?

Linda sets out to explore her memory, if only to set her mind at ease that she did not help convict an innocent man. But in her quest for truth, she uncovers a few secrets that others would rather have kept quiet. Such is the result of questions raised in a small town.

The story is quietly told, low-key, almost meandering, and seemed to take forever to come to the point. I can't argue that it's badly written -- it has lovely prose and engaging characters -- but its less than 300 pages felt interminable: one of the reasons it took me over a month to finish it. I kept putting it down and walking away.

Truthfully, the way this novel was set up, I fully expected it to reveal Linda as the murderer, who had somehow forgotten she had done it -- traumatic amnesia of some sort -- and the memories were now surfacing out of guilt over marrying Luci's boyfriend Charlie within months of Luci's death. That author Mary Howard didn't take us there both surprised and somehow disappointed me. I'm sure this unmet expectation has a lot to do with my lack of enjoyment of the story.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book, but the end left me feeling like the author deliberately withheld information about the character who wound up being the "bad guy," as if she didn't want us to guess too soon. With him being kind of 1-dimensional I had dismissed him. Now I am left unable to really understand what happened and why because the author didn't give me enough information about the characters themselves, how their relationships all developed, etc.

sarah

[Kim · Rating 1 out of 5]

How is it possible for a murder mystery to be so boring. And then on top of that, the victim is so unpleasant that you really don't care anyway. Sigh.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half of this book was slow and felt unnecessary if I’m being honest. When the protagonist found Luci’s diary, that’s when it picked up and became interesting.

The plot unraveled itself rather nicely from there though Linda did some dangerous and, dare I say, stupid things to uncover the mystery. Though I sort of had a feeling who it was the whole time, I liked that the author led readers in a certain direction and then switched it last second. I also enjoyed that each person that Linda talked to revealed more about Luci’s death but there was still a question of accuracy and reliability.

Even at the end of the novel I’m left guessing about what really went on in Luci’s life. How much of what she wrote about was true and how much did the other characters in this novel lie? This is compelling to some extent but also frustrating to get to the end without all the answers.

Another thing I don’t fully understand is the motive behind who was revealed as Luci’s killer. Every other suspect had motive but the person revealed didn’t seem to have any besides just being sick and twisted. Maybe that’s enough but if it is then I feel like there should be more hints to it throughout the novel that I can point back to.

Overall the second half of the book was intriguing and kept me wanting more but the first half was slow and boring and had way too much happening that didn’t push the plot forward.

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Remember, one man's quick plot summary may be another man's spoiler.

A woman who found the body of her murdered housemate helped put the suspect in prison, then develops misgivings about her testimony.

She thinks someone in their small Iowa town is surveilling her, and confides in her husband, whom she married after the murder, now two years past. He tell her it's just a reaction to her unresolved grief.

The woman, Linda Garbo, follows her instinct to reconsider the case. She uncoveras multiple new suspects, and eventually finds the culpable person extremely close to home.

Enjoyed Howard's lovely descriptions of farm fields, bee keeping, graphic arts, hair dressing, book-selling. Engaging writing style, characters' perceptions seem to emerge almost without author effort. (A crock, I know.)

Howard wrote this something like 10 years ago. Wonder if she has published anything subsequent?

[K · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very convoluted story about confusing characters. Told in a not very straight forward manner. Who killed Luci,,, really? Linda, her returned friend, doesn’t really understand Luci’s motivations, her past life, her mental condition. Linda is the only witness right after her stabbing, and later discovers her memory is faulty. Is driven to get the convicted peter Garvey freed of a crime he swears he didn’t commit. Even her eyewitness testimony was responsible for his conviction.
I can’t even clearly get what this review means, or what the author intended. Too many unexplained references?.... I mean Tripplehorn? Where’d that come from? I think a reference to a guy I don’t think was before-mentioned? ?

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an enjoyable light mystery, beginning after a murder and the trial of the man convicted of it. Although somewhat predictable, the author throws enough red herrings into the plot to make the reader suspect first one character, then another, as the actual perpetrator.

Probably because I was taking a winter vacation at the beach, I would characterize it as a good “ beach read.” It won’t keep you awake at night, and you can pick it up and read it in small doses without getting lost.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really tried to like this book but it did not resonate with me. The elements and characters did not seem to mesh or drive the story to any logical conclusion. It was like the 'actual murderer' was thrown in at the last second in an attempt to provide the story with an exciting end twist.
But there were no twists or excitement in this story.

[Susan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldn't finish, flat boring characters, slow paced, no emotion.

[Nikole · Rating 2 out of 5]

I know who the killer was early on. The writing was confusing, mixed conversation with action in a strange way.

[Alison · Rating 2 out of 5]

Linda Garbo has had a hard time letting go of her friend Luci’s murder which took place about two years before we are brought into the story. While she was the prime witness who sealed the case for the prosecution, a local journalist recently visited the convicted man which caused her to second guess herself. The book follows her steps from this initial question to…the actual murderer.

Unfortunately this book was difficult to believe. Who moves to a town on the request of what is said to be an acquaintance (never close and only spoke may 7 times a year)? Who feels as if they are being stalked only to turn to that person as the individual who helps you? Who has a best friend, that doesn’t really appear to be a best friend (appears thrown in to have another woman in the book)?

While the book itself was a quick read, the set up for so much of it made it unbelievable. Also, the actual murderer kept me guessing until the end, but the character was not brought to life really in the book.

[Chris M · Rating 5 out of 5]

How well do we ever know our friends? What is truth and what is the mask? None of the suspects in this book ever quite sat right with me to be the killer and each time I wondered about the character whom it turned out to be, the author successfully deflected my suspicions until the very last pages. The main characters are revealed layer by layer and, as in life, there is quite a bit of misdirection along the way.... and do we really ever discover all the layers? A great book! Although it was published quite some time ago, I only recently discovered it in my local library. I am disappointed to find out that the author apparently has not written another novel as I would gladly read it!

[Mary Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had the opportunity to attend a lecture by Mary Howard recently. I had read this novel when it first came out, but decided to do a reread. It stood up well, the characters, sense of place are excellant. The plot with all the twists and blind alleys is very believable. I am eager to read her next book which contains the same main character.

[Evelyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still haunted by her friend's murder two years ago, Linda Garbo pursues finding the real truth about her friend's mysterious death.

Low-key suspense surrounding a mysterious past murder and details of small town life and relationships make this first novel a compelling read.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not fond of books written in the first person present; somehow the story then seems too self-important. However, I did enjoy this mystery and how the answers unfolded even though I wasn't always sure what brought the ideas to the protagonist's mind.

[Gail · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read for mystery lovers. Just enough clues to keep me guessing.

[Melissa Dally · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely written by someone familiar with Iowa, that was neat to read as an Iowa native. :-)

[Joanne · Rating 1 out of 5]

While I loved reading a book set locally, the back and forth of the scenes in this book and its slow-moving pace didn't work for me.