Interesting Mystery Meets College Memoir


Julie Patel? Her name still haunts me.

Bradstreet Gate is a poignant look at college life and murder wrapped up neatly in a beautifully designed paperback format. Shown on the edition I’d read, the cover alone depicts a sinister wrought iron gate slightly ajar, leading to mist shrouded grounds, littered with Victorian buildings. Dark windows and shadowy doorways allow the mind to wander while reading the pages of this story. 3 friends find themselves caught in a web of lies and half-truths. Lives of mystery and second guessing. A situation that would almost crush any 20-something student juggling not only their already frail academic careers, but their vain attempt at maturity as well. Honestly, if a friend was murdered, I believe that would catapult a person directly into maturity and possible even acceptance of mortality, or destroy their life.

But I will now digress from my meandering half-assed poetic musing. Georgia, Charlie and Alice join the ranks of new faces on campus, beginning their freshman year with high hopes. Some of the trio arrived on good faith and a name, while others had to rely on hard work and perseverance to reach this moment. Along the way they’ve all come together in friendship and understanding and even lustful affairs, while also attempting to understand a charismatic professor whom both baffles and mystifies them. Suspicions begin to arise concerning the trio and professor when a star student, Julie Patel is murdered outside her dorm room, frankly in full view of the entire school.
Decades pass and this tragic situation seems to be forgotten, not completely but nearly. Always looming in the back of each person’s head. Secrets come to light and questions begin to stir desperately seeking answers. Bradstreet Gate is an intelligently written whodunit leaving the reader aching for more with every turning page, holding on dearly to every word until the final climax allows a somewhat stark truth that results in a sense of unfinished business. Closure on the horizon, but never quite attained.


I gave Bradstreet Gate a 4 out of 5. I enjoyed the story and dialogue, but felt slightly disenchanted with the ending. I was willing to forgive if the moment and confession was presented, but unfortunately I was left slightly unsatisfied. Perhaps I missed something? I’m willing to give this a second read. 


For more information, please click Bradstreet Gate


                                                                   Blogging For Books f

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Art in the Blood: A Sherlock Holmes Adventure by Bonnie MacBird

Image
The first thing I noticed about this novel right from the start was that although it says, "A Sherlock Holmes Mystery" it didn't immediately feel that way. The novel's characters shared a lot of similarities and even posted at the famous 221B Baker Street address, but their attitudes, mannerisms and even dialogue was somewhat skewed. Not to discredit the author, the story in of itself was actually quite captivating and entertaining to boot. A mystery shrouding an Earl, art dealers murdering civilians and a very seductive damsel in distress. Action flooded nearly every page in this story and the climate in the scenes help mask the shady-dealings happening on every page. Snowy nights muffling suspicious footfalls, shadows cast when no one is near, the cold ripping at the clothing of the characters as they battle to survive. I will give the author, Bonnie MacBird much praise in her set up for this story which is revealed to the reader in the first few lines of this...
Read more

The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson

Image
I would like to start off by saying this rendition of Shakespeare’s “The Winter Tale” was by far the bravest thing ever written. Jeanette Winterson managed to take a timeless classic and smoother it in modern times, characters and situations. There’s also a very subtle nods to “Back to the Future” here as well. The book opens with the original “The Winter Tale” so the readers can become familiar with at least the basic backbone of the story and jumps right into what I believe to be a strangled and doomed relationship from the start between to childhood friends, Leo and Xeno and how that are in fact both in love with the same woman, MiMi. The jealousy between these 2 men nearly kills MiMi, results in the death of Leo and MiMi’s son, Milo and separates Leo and MiMi from each other and their Daughter Perdita for nearly 18 years. Perdita was taken away by a trusted friend of Leo to be taken to what he assumed was her father, by unfortunately was murdered along the way. Baby Perdita wa...
Read more

Near Enemy by Adam Sternbergh

Image
David Spademan is good at one thing, being a garbageman, his father was a garbageman and he followed suit, but seeing how the once great city of New York is now basically a memory that has all been wiped out by a "dirty bomb" , he's been reduced to peruse other areas of trash related work. The people that still inhabit the fringe neighborhoods that once surrounded Time Square spend their time locked into a dreamlike virtual reality where anything goes, Spademan still manages to take out the trash, but in the form of a box-cutter to the jugular while creepy perverts who broke an unwritten rule are locked into la la land. Technically there are no rules in this altered reality known as the Limnosphere, so in short, Spademan takes out whomever his clients ask, so long as he's paid in cash. He likes his job, to a degree. But his latest target, Lesser, a fat sloppy bed-hopping pervert who likes to peek in on other people's fantasies sends Spademan down a weird and...
Read more