Review of "Shadow Play: An Eve Duncan Mystery" by Iris Johansen

In this 19th book in the 'Eve Duncan' series, the forensic sculptor is on the trail of a child killer. The book can be read as a standalone, but familiarity with the characters is a plus.

*****

After a storm the skeleton of a nine-year-old girl, who has been buried for eight years, is exposed in a forest in Sonderville, California.



Needing a facial reconstruction to get an identification, Sheriff John Nalchek sends the skull to famous forensic sculptor Eve Duncan in Atlanta, Georgia.



It turns out that Eve can communicate with the child's ghost, who says her name is Jenny. Jenny recalls being frightened and hurt at the time of her death, but can't remember much else. Eve - who lost her own daughter Bonnie years ago - forms a relationship with Jenny's ghost and is determined to bring Jenny's killer to justice.



Meanwhile, Jenny's murderer - a demented sociopath named Walsh - is furious that the skeleton has been unearthed and will do anything to prevent the girl's identification. Walsh makes his way to Georgia to steal the reconstructed skull, hoping to kill Eve and her protective boyfriend, Detective Joe Quinn while he's there. Walsh gets the skull but doesn't get the chance to kill Eve and Joe.



After the skull is stolen Eve and Joe go to California to help with the investigation. Sheriff Nalchek is chagrined by their presence because he doesn't like interference on his turf.



Nalchek is even more annoyed when Eve's friend/protegé, nineteen-year-old Margaret, shows up. Margaret can communicate with animals and receives clues about the case from a coyote who has been watching over Jenny's grave. The supernatural episodes are common in this series and form an integral part of the story.



Meanwhile the murderer Walsh is looking for a certain young girl whom he plans to kill. As the story continues we learn who the girl is and why Walsh is determined to find her. To me the reason is overly complicated, doesn't make a lot of sense, and isn't believable.

Once the action shifts to California the story unfolds as a kind of cat and mouse game. Walsh maneuvers to get rid of Eve and Joe while he searches for the girl. At the same time Eve, Joe, and Nalchek try to identify and locate the girl and stop the sociopath.



The book seemed to concentrate mostly on the personal lives of the characters, especially Eve and Joe, with the murder investigation taking a back seat. Moreover, many of Walsh's actions seemed irrational and didn't make sense to me. For these reasons I didn't love the book.

Big fans of the Eve Duncan series will probably like this book. For other mystery fans I would only mildly recommend it.

Rating: 2.5 stars

Review of "The Accident: A Psychological Thriller" by S.D. Monaghan

David met Tara five years ago, when he was a 35-year-old history lecturer at Dublin's Trinity College......



.....and she was a 25-year-old student in his class.



David was very taken with the beautiful young woman, who was smart and had 'curious brown eyes, full lips, and free-falling auburn hair.' At the time, Tara was dating a working class bloke named Ryan.....



.....and David reluctantly kept his distance, even after the class ended.

Eighteen months later David happened to see Tara again, displaying her original paintings at a sidewalk art show.



David and Tara began to chat and - due to a rainstorm and happenstance - David helped Tara sell several paintings to a very rich American buyer.

Skip ahead a few years and David and Tara are married.



Tara is a wealthy, successful artist and David functions as her business manager while still teaching and pursuing his Ph.D. degree. The sudden prosperity is a big change for the couple, who grew up in rough, impoverished neighborhoods.

David and Tara - who are expecting a child - have renovated a huge home on Lawrence Court, and are about to move into 'the best house on the best street in Dublin.'





Ironically, Tara's old boyfriend Ryan is the builder who's upgrading the mansion under the direction of Gordon - a snobby blueblood architect who looks down his privileged nose at all of them.



SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT

On the evening before David and Tara are scheduled to move into their gorgeous (but not quite completed) new house, David decides to stop by on a whim - to look the place over and revel in his good fortune. David is shocked to see Tara kissing Ryan, and - after she drives off - finds her panties on the floor.



Furious and hurt, David confronts the builder- whose tan, muscled, tattooed body is clad only in jeans. The two men argue and tussle, and Ryan falls off the unfinished balcony. Looking down, David sees that Ryan has fallen three floors into a pit, and appears to be bloody and dead.

David starts to run downstairs to check on the builder, but accidently knocks himself out. When David wakes up the next morning, there's no body and no pit. Instead, there's a patio with freshly laid limestone and travertine slabs. Ryan's workers have inadvertently buried the body!



Before long Ryan is an official missing person, and David doesn't know what to do. If he goes to the police, he'll be accused of murder. And - though David is very angry at Tara - he still wants to be with her and the baby. While David is mulling it all over, he's hit with terrible news. Someone knows he killed Ryan and wants a HUGE amount of blackmail money to keep mum. So much moola, in fact, that David and Tara will lose EVERYTHING they own and be forced to live in poverty.



What to do....what to do? That's what David has to decide. Should he confess? Kill himself? Pay the extortion money? And there's an added problem. David and Tara's neighbor, Shay, comes over to report that something under their new patio is blocking the sewer - and smelly, disgusting sludge is backing up into his house. Shay insists that the builders fix the problem immediately. If not, he'll take matters into his own hands.

The story alternates between the present - where David has to deal with Ryan's unexpected demise, and the past - where David and Tara meet and embark on their relationship. This literary device works up to a point but results in too many cliffhangers, which is annoying and impedes the continuity of the story.

The book's plot is engaging, with plenty of twists and turns - some of which the astute reader may guess (or maybe not. LOL). The villains are appropriately venomous, and I was hoping they would get their just deserts. However, I didn't find the 'good guys' totally likable either. David's 'mooning' over Tara - 'her presence, her voice, her warmth, her mind, her art, her body, her gaze' - was too adolescent and soppy for my taste.



And Tara - when confronted with her adultery - couldn't understand David's anger. 'David was suddenly a stranger to her. The David she knew would try to understand.' (Understand her shagging another - much hunkier - guy? Are you kidding me?!)

END SPOILER ALERT    END SPOILER ALERT    END SPOILER ALERT

Overall, I found this to be an enjoyable psychological thriller, good for a few hours entertainment.

Thanks to Netgalley, the author (S.D. Monaghan), and the publisher (Bookouture) for a copy of the book.

Rating: 3 stars

Review of "Allegiant: Divergent #3" by Veronica Roth

This 3rd book in the 'Divergent' series completes the trilogy. The faction system has fallen apart, and the members venture outside the walls of their former confined community.



Dauntless fighters Tris.....



......and Four have to show their mettle in the resulting dangerous environment.



IMO the completed series doesn't live up to the hype. I feel like the author loses her way somewhere along the line and whatever point she is trying to get across to the reader is not clear.

It seems (to me) that Veronica Roth is suggesting that family and loved ones are the most important thing in life and should be cherished above everything.



I think she also wants us to understand that the characters in the series who don't agree with the views of the government are not "genetically damaged" - and they shouldn't be considered inferior and eliminated.

I can understand why young girls like the books. The romance between Tris and Four - all the scenes of kissing and snuggling - is aimed right at them. I do understand why many people were especially disappointed with Allegiant....they wanted a happier ending than they got.

For me this just wasn't a totally successful series.

Rating: 3 stars

Review of "Insurgent: Divergent #2" by Veronica Roth

In this 2nd book in the 'Divergent' series the war between the factions is well under way, and people show more of their true colors. Tris is feeling overwhelming guilt because of the deaths of her parents and her friend Will; and the romance between Tris.....



.....and Tobias (Four) is tested by divided loyalties.



I liked this book better than Divergent. I appreciated the more extensive explanation of the factions and the deeper development of the characters. We discover that the "good guys" and the "bad guys" are not that clear cut and that some characters are harboring unexpected secrets.



The basic thrust of the story is that Erudite is trying to take over the city and become the main governing faction. To this end Jeanine, the head of Erudite, is trying to develop a serum that gives her control of every person in the city, including the Divergents. Jeanine will do anything to accomplish this goal - manipulate, torture, kill, whatever it takes - and enlists some unexpected allies to help her.



Jeanine needs a test subject for her serums, which turns out to be Tris.



In any case, there is a huge secret behind Jeanine's machinations and the revelation of this secret at the end of the story is the bridge to book three.

I thought Tris was too whiny in this book, constantly thinking of the deaths of her loved ones and wondering if she was better off dead as well. This got old. And the romance between Tris and Tobias got too icky for me with constant scenes of kissing and pressing their bodies together. It's possible, though, I would have loved these scenes when I was a teenager.



I'm planning to read book three (Allegiant) to see how the rest of the story plays out.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Review of "Divergent: Divergent #1" by Veronica Roth

liked it

In this first book in the 'Divergent ' series, we learn about a dystopian society where the population is divided into five distinct groups.

*****

The dystopian society in this book has five factions, and when a person reaches the age of 16 he/she is tested to see where they fit in. A small number of people are "divergent" and don't belong anywhere. They are considered dangerous and must hide their identity. Tris is one of these people.



The premise of the book is that there is growing tension between some of the factions and this seems likely to lead to conflict. The book contains many of the tropes of dystopian YA fiction, but has some flaws.

The society that contains these factions is not well-defined or explained and the reason for the sadistic training regimen of the Dauntless recruits (the faction our heroine Tris joins) was never made clear. I wanted to know how this compared with the training regimens of the other factions. In any case, a romance springs up between Tris and a Dauntless leader called Four, who's hunky and good-looking.



There are a minimal number of adults in the book, and kids seem to be in charge of everything in the Dauntless faction. The book mostly (and rather repetitively) trots along describing the training of the Dauntless recruits until, towards the end, the pace picks up and events propel the story forward - toward the second book in the series.



Some Young Adult books hold just as much interest for adults as young readers. To me this one doesn't, both because of the writing and the story line. I will go on to the second book though, out of curiosity to see what happens.

Rating: 3 stars

Review of "Lemon Meringue Pie Murder: A Hannah Swensen Mystery" by Joanne Fluke

 

In this 4th book in the 'Hannah Swensen Mysteries' the baker/amateur sleuth is looking for antiques with her mother when they come across a dead body. The book can be read as a standalone.



*****

Hannah Swensen, owner of a cookie shop, is surprised to hear that one of her boyfriends, dentist Norman Rhodes, has purchased a house - lock, stock, and barrel - from Rhonda Scarf. He plans to tear down the house and build a dream home.



Before the house is demolished Hannah and her mom, an antique shop owner, go out to look for treasures.



In addition to a few valuable antiques they find the dead body of Rhonda Scarf.



Hannah's other boyfriend, detective Mike Kingston tells her to keep her nose out of the investigation.....



......but Hannah can't resist and dives right in.



This is a real cozy mystery in the sense that the police/detectives seem to do nothing at all. As Hannah runs around questioning people and making phone calls and taking photos of the crime scene, etc. it seems like she's the first one on the scene every time.

Soon after the murder, money from an old bank robbery starts circulating through town which provides clues to the crime. The book is chock full of fun characters - Hannah's sisters, mom, and friends. It's a fun light mystery that includes recipes for lemon meringue pie and a variety of (what sound like) delicious goodies.

Recipes in the book include:


Lemon Meringue Pie


Almond Kisses


Cinnamon Crisps


Praline Charlottes


Cottage Cheese Pancakes


Pineapple Right-Side-Up Cookie Bars

Rating: 3 stars