Fractured Oak - Dannie Boyd - ★★★★.½

AUTHOR: Dannie Boyd

NARRATOR: Sierra Kline

GENRE: Cosy Mystery, Magical Realism.

RATING: 4.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: An interesting cocktail of contemporary police procedural plus mild mystery plus magical realism plus historical fiction. Though not much of a mystery, this indie work kept me hooked from start to end.

Story Synopsis:

In 1853, Catherine Miller became the third woman to become a medical doctor. On the same day as she received her diploma, she was brutally murdered.

Now, a hundred and seventy years later, Catherine is still alive but not as a human. She is a sentient oak tree, observing quietly the events and the resident of the secluded house near the place “she” is rooted in. The owner of the house, Dr. Carver, isn’t Catherine’s favourite person, and her worst fears are confirmed when he ends up murdering one of his Ph.D. students in front of her. Can she do anything though? She is just a tree.

Lani Whitaker, a detective just a few weeks short of her mandatory retirement, is fed up of being treated as an incapable old woman by the chief of police. When she, along with her young partner officer Brian, is handed the investigation of the Ph.D. student’s murder, Lani is determined to end her career with victory.

The story comes to us in the first person perspective of Catherine and the third person limited perspective of Lani.

Unlike what I had initially assumed, this isn’t a debut work. Dannie Boyd is the pen name of medical thriller author Carrie Rubin, who chose a pen name for this work as its magical realism foundation is different from her usual genre. Her expertise and her experience are amply demonstrated in this novel.

Bookish Yays:

😍 Historical fiction and contemporary drama – two of my favourite genres. When both come in the same book and are even handled well, yay!

😍 The dual perspectives of Catherine and Lani are written excellently. Of course, having one voice in first person and one in third person helps maintain the distinction in the perspectives, but I still appreciate how the author played close attention to the women’s ages in their voices. Catherine, who was twenty-three when killed, still sounds like a young adult, having a crush over someone and being emotional in her feelings. Her confusion over modern technology and her comments about the change in times also come out nicely. Lani, on the other hand, sounds like a true veteran who has had a lifetime of dealing with gender discrimination and gives back as hard as she gets. At the same time, she is not written as a force of nature who is unfazed by her age. On the contrary, her groans and grunts also make appearances when needed. I loved the honesty and accuracy in both their voices.

😍 Though the story covers a variety of topics, it doesn’t digress into unrelated minor tracks, nor does it slacken the pace. The events progress steadily from start to end. More importantly to me, nothing much seemed farfetched, even the fact that Catherine’s pov comes from her being a tree!

😍 And now that we are talking of the tree, I must admit I was very worried when I realised that one of the povs was that of a tree. I had had a bad experience with Elif Shafak’s ‘The Island of Missing Trees’, which also had a tree narrator. But in this book, the magical realism element is just outstanding and the author gets the voice of the tree spot on. Catherine narrates only what she observes and sometimes ponders over her life as a human in the 1850s, thus making her perspective sound genuine.

😍 Catherine’s musings over the past include her struggles as a female student in the male-dominated world of medicine. These seem very true to the era.

😍 Lani and Brian make for a great team. Like a typical police pair, they have their differences but their bond is strong and comes across in every scene. I enjoyed how Lani was not depicted just as a police detective but also had her own backstory that highlighted the reason for her protectiveness towards Brian.

😍 Doesn’t a story always get better with an adorable dog? If you read this book, you get Iggy the beagle. I wish there were more of him in the plot, but what we get is also pretty good.

😍 The author’s note at the end reveals more details about the historical fiction timeline, highlighting why she chose a fictional character to represent the third woman medical graduate in the US.

Bookish Nays:

😐 Lani’s pov has Brian and the chief of police making some age-related jokes. Brian’s comments are mostly like banter while the CoP’s are more condescending. While I liked how realistic this made the whole scenario, I feel that the jokes were stretched too much. Some of the gags were funny, no doubt, and Lani not just took them in the right spirit but also gave back with equal fervour, but after a point, the jokes began to feel repetitive, and this reduced their impact.

😐 A majority of the characters in the historical timeline feel somewhat flat as we get only limited glimpses of them. This isn’t a major problem, because the focus of the story is more on the contemporary investigation. However, I would have liked to know more about a few of the characters in Catherine’s life as well.

⚠ The book doesn’t have much of a mystery because we already know who the killer is, courtesy Catherine’s eye-witness (whoops… tree-witness!) account of the murder. So while Lani and her team are in the dark, we the readers can just wait until they discover the identity of the guilty party. This might spoil the suspense for those who pick this book up primarily as a mystery.

(This didn’t bother me much because the book had enough to keep me entertained and I am not much of a mystery fan anyway.)

The audiobook experience:

The audiobook, clocking at 7 hr 27 min, is narrated by Sierra Kline. She has the tough task of narrating a twenty-three year old and a sixty-five year old, but she handles the task adeptly, giving both the leading ladies a memorable voice that doesn’t sound exaggerated. Catherine’s pov is much more emotional, and Kline renders every feeling well. I truly enjoyed her performance and would definitely recommend the audio version.

All in all, I enjoyed this story because it delivered what it promised. I was confused over whether to go for a 4 star rating or higher because the book has more entertainment merit than literary merit. However, commercial fiction hardly ever gets as much acclaim as literary fiction, and when a book serves as one heck of an entertainer and delivers on its promise exactly as per its genre, it deserves a high rating regardless of its simpler prose.

Definitely recommended when you are looking for a light cosy mystery intermingled with historical elements and magical realism, with strong characters as a plus.

Content warning: Animal abuse

I won a free copy of the audiobook in a giveaway. Thank you, Indigo Dot Press! This book came as a wonderful surprise, and was a treat to read.