Telling the Bees
Octogenarian Albert Honig, a quiet, unassuming bachelor, has always lived a quiet, unassuming life. He’s incredibly attuned to the workings of the beehives he keeps in his sunny Southern California backyard, and their buzzing inhabitants are his closest companions. Although he doesn’t care for most of his neighbors, he has remained on good terms with his next-door neighbors, sisters Claire and Hilda Straussman. Then Albert discovers that the Straussman sisters have been murdered. As the investigation swirls around him, Albert pieces together his memories of Claire and Hilda and finds that he may not have known his neighbors as well as he thought. A story of shared history, secrets of omission, and revisited memories, Telling the Bees is nostalgic and hauntingly poetic. Richly detailed and sparsely populated, Hesketh’s debut novel relies on Albert’s depth of narration and an enlightening amount of apiology. Reminiscent of the work of Karen Joy Fowler and Peter Orner, Telling the Bees reminds readers that even quiet hives are deceptively active, as Albert’s foggy memories may unravel the mysterious life and untimely death of the Straussman sisters. --Stephanie Turza