Evan's Gate

March 29, 2004
In Agatha winner Bowen's perfectly paced, deftly choreographed Welsh cozy, her eighth to feature Constable Evan Evans (after 2003's Evan Only Knows
), Evan looks into two eerily similar abduction cases—one old, one new. When five-year-old Ashley Sholokhov goes missing during a seaside excursion, suspicion points to her Russian father, who's estranged from her mother. Meanwhile, to celebrate the 80th birthday of curmudgeonly gentleman sheep farmer Tomos Thomas, his middle-aged progeny return to the grassy, boulder-strewn hills of Llanfair, carrying blame, survivor's guilt and unanswered questions concerning the long-ago disappearance of Sarah, Tomos's granddaughter. The parallels between Sarah and Ashley weigh heavily upon Evan, who's eager to live up to his recent promotion to the Plainclothes Division. In desperation, Evan sticks his neck out a bit too far in this gorgeous and unruly terrain, where a hike in the hills can become treacherous when the sun goes down. Fortunately, his charming schoolmarm betrothed, Bronwen, is there to provide solace. Bowen delivers an enchanting portrait of Wales with genuine, flawed characters, a modicum of humor and plenty of red herrings to keep the detective constable and the reader guessing. Agent, Meg Ruley.

April 1, 2004
Constable Evan's plans to renovate a charming shepherd's cottage for his fianc e run into an obstacle: a child's skeleton buried in the front yard. Oddly enough, his discovery competes for attention with a current missing-child case: could the two be connected? An attractive series addition.

Copyright 2004 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2004
Welsh Detective Constable Evan Evans, now in the Plainclothes Division, works his eighth case. A young girl, Ashley, has disappeared from a local beach, possibly abducted by her father. When Evans later uncovers a child's skeleton while digging outside the cottage he is renovating, he decides Ashley's disappearance may be connected with that of another young girl, Sarah, who went missing when Evans was a child--especially since Sarah's relatives are all back in Wales for the first time since the tragedy to attend a birthday party. His superiors want Evans to concentrate on locating the father, but he feels compelled to follow other leads to find the missing child as well as to investigate Sarah's family. A fine sense of place, a compelling dual story line, and a cast of sympathetic, well-drawn characters give this small-town police procedural plenty of appeal. Recommend Evans to readers of M. C. Beaton's Hamish Macbeth mysteries set in Scotland.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)