ANNIE FELDMAN

Great Read

Revisado: 10-25-23

The title of this exciting debut novel refers to what is known in the yoga world as Shavasana. It is a pose meant to relieve tension, not to kill you. Hence as the novel opens, Yoga Boronia studio owner and instructor Elaina Williams is shocked to have a student in her yoga class die while performing Shavasana. But mostly she is devastated, because on the very day of his death Mario Vincente, a short pudgy man who had been her eager student for ten months, had come to class early asking for a minute of her time and she'd put him off. What had he wanted to say? What if she had taken the time to hear him out? Would he still be alive? Mario was "a man of precision and regularity. Socially, personally, even biologically, he functioned like clockwork." Even with medical tests still pending, the idea that his death might be nefarious cannot be dismissed.

When she herself is personally targeted, Elaina feels compelled to solve this potential crime. She owes it to Mario and to herself. But she's not alone. Ric Peters, another student in the class, has chatted with Mario a few times and finds it troubling to assume he would've succumbed to such mild exercise. And there is something so appealing about the oval-faced, strawberry blonde yoga instructor that makes Ric want to help her.

When the New South Wales (NSW) polic force starts its routine forensics to explore and explain Mario's sudden death, Ric and Elaina decide it won't be enough. IN stepping up the investigation beyond the tried and true they dig up a host of characters each quirkier than the last. There is Professor Scott at the University of Sydney, a man overly fond of spreading multicolored TackiNotes along his office walls, but whose advice they heed as in his mantra: "Don't ever let logic get in the way of the options." Ric's closed friend Jack McMasters, detective inspector on NSW's Homicide Squad, is one of those Aussie straight-shooters where "honest and blunt were the only two options that came from his mouth." Jack is a big believer in outback intuition, especially Ric's. And to cover all the bases Ric and Elaina question Groady, a homeless man who might've see something since he sometimes sleeps in the lit-up area in front of Elaina's studio "to check on a watch he never wore."

Ric and Ealina's midnight jaunts along the grittier side of Sydney invoke a mood of classic noir mystery, but the noir is tempered by the modesty of these two amateur sleuths, the quirky characters they dig up and their blooming romance. tow hand-drawn maps preface the written story, adding a home-made quality and a sense of immediacy to the crime-solving. And then there is the coffee, mentioned at least forty times in the two-hundred page novel. IN the stress of hunting down clues to Mario's possible murder, Ric and Elaina start, punctuate and end most days with coffee, sometimes from the Rocket machine at Ric's apartment and often via their search on the streets for that "perfect cup."

Dead Man's Pose is an engaging read, with characters that make you laugh out loud and historical references inserted casually throughout the story that make the town of Sydney and the continent of Australia come alive. The tongue-in-cheek writing style enhances the read to no end. In one case Ric and Elaina find a Dr. Franklin Moore, attending physician at a casino that might be connected to Mario's murky past, and ask about Moore's background. "Like a rocket Moore launched into the condense-mil version of his bio from birth to his current work. Somehow he managed to avoid his run-ins with ethics committees, the occasional suspension of his license and the bulging complaints files at past employments."

This audio version offers a real down-under experiences, as narrator Rupert Degas adds his native-sounding Australian accent to the mix, varying pitch and pace and carefully capturing the nuances of the diverse set of characters that populate this highly entertaining story.

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