All About Women
January 2012 Issue
Reviewer: June Bare
HERA’S REVENGE: An Yvonne Suarez Travel Mystery
By Wendy Dingwall
“The weather outside is frightful…” If that song strikes a note this time of year, perhaps an escape to sunny, warm Greece would be more palatable. Caution, however, might be in order if you go with Fort Lauderdale’s Pinkerton’s travel agent, Yvonne Suarez … unless you want murder and mayhem to accompany your vacation.
Single mother, Yvonne Suarez, the protagonist in Wendy Dingwall’s first book of a series, Hera’s Revenge, has never actually led a tour. When she directs her first tour, she is plagued with problems that were not part of the bargain. No sooner does her diverse group of tourists arrive at the Athens airport, than a body decorated with a dagger through his chest replaces the expected luggage at the baggage pickup. This particular murder, seemingly unconnected to the trials that follow, is merely the beginning of Yvonne’s problems.
The tour group includes software designer, David, a last minute tourist, who has an eye for Yvonne; Beverly, a single paralegal, who has an eye for David; Evelyn, who has long awaited a vacation to Greece with her retired physician husband, Richard; Cynthia and Mark, hairstylists, who hope to find romance … not with each other; Missy and Todd, second honeymooners with their own set of conflicts; accident prone Janice and her loud-mouthed husband Bill; their wealthy friends, Rosanna and Nicholas; and Ari, the Greek tour guide.
Yvonne inadvertently becomes involved in the varied conflicts of her charges, when the police detain the tour group. Daily crises occur when Janice is pushed and falls on the climb to the Parthenon. Every day Yvonne faces another calamity … accidents, suspicions, death, conflicts among the group, love affairs. Yvonne is not certain she is cut out to be a tour guide, especially since she is concerned for her six year old daughter back home in Fort Lauderdale.
Just when it looks as though all is going to turn out well, another crisis occurs. David’s life is endangered, delaying Yvonne’s return home. In the end, Yvonne is partly instrumental for nabbing an international art theft ring and receives a heroine’s welcome when she returns to the Pinkerton Travel Agency.
Hera’s Revenge is a well-researched book, taking the reader to Greece, with its beauty, ancient history, mythology, and architecture. Wendy Dingwall transfers sights, sounds, and savory Greek foods and wines to the reader’s mind. If the reader has been to Greece, the book will bring back enjoyable memories. If a trip to Greece is in your “bucket list” of things to do, Hera’s Revenge might be a good way to feed the dream.
Although Wendy Dingwall has traveled in Greece as a travel agent, she did not set about to write travel mysteries until she moved to the high country. “Since it’s a good idea to write what you know, and since I was fortunate to come from a travel background, I felt it gave me a world of possibilities for an unusual mystery series. In most travel mysteries the protagonist is someone that just happens to travel. In mine the protagonist is an actual travel agent so it allows me to weave the history and culture of the area into the story,” Wendy states.
Most of the characters the reader meets in the book are figments of Dingwall’s fertile imagination; however, a few are based on her experience as a travel agent. She even sees herself and other agents in the character development of Yvonne Suarez.
The next book of this mystery series, set in Scotland, will be titled Celtic Curse, Readers may expect to see David Ludlow and a few other recurring characters in Celtic Curse and subsequent books.
Ms. Dingwall is not only a writer; she has her own publishing firm, Canterbury House Publishing. With the advent of more reading options such as digital books and e-books, traditional books have a lot of competition. She believes, however, that there will always be those who prefer turning pages in a real book, and that the digital market will level out. Currently, “…most publishers have decreased the size of their print runs,” she says.
Enjoy the read.
