Review: Chill Factor by Sandra Brown

Title: Chill Factor

Author: Sandra Brown (I would normally link to the author’s website but it’s one of those ones which plays music as soon as you land on the page which is my number 1 internet annoyance)

Narrator: Stephen Lang

Publisher: Clipper Audio [2007]

ISBN: 978 1 40740 863 7

Length: 13 hours 30 minutes

Setting: North Carolina, USA, present-day

Genre: Romantic thriller?

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating: 1/5

One-liner: You’d have to go a long way to meet a nastier collection of characters.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Lilly Martin and Dutch Burton argue while cleaning out the mountain cabin they shared when they were married. Dutch leaves Lilly to make her way down the treacherous mountain road on her own just as a severe snow storm is starting and when she finally does leave she hits a hiker and crashes her car. She and the hiker, Ben Tierney, make their way back to the cabin to wait out the storm. What Lilly doesn’t know is that Ben hadn’t been on a normal hike but was coming from the graves of some women who had gone missing in and around the town of Cleary, North Carolina over the previous two years. The question is has Lilly just become trapped in a cabin with a serial killer?

The answer is I didn’t much care.

This was mainly due to the fact I couldn’t find a single likeable character in the whole, long book. Dutch, the town’s newly appointed Police Chief, and his best friend Wes Hamer, the high school football coach and a town councillor, are crude, misogynist, bullies without one redeeming quality between them. Dutch is such a charming fellow that he is more concerned about the possibility of his ex-wife having sex with another man than he is about the idea she could soon be the victim of a serial killer. Wes’ parenting skills include forcing his son to take steroids and breaking up his relationship with his girlfriend in the most despicable way a father could choose. His wife embraces her status as a victim of his verbal abuse and womanising. There’s also a creepy town pharmacist who dispenses cruel gossip and blackmail along with his prescriptions and his insipid sister who has a covert lover sneaking into her bedroom at night. The external law enforcement duo that arrive about half way through the book undertake a few bits of random guesswork as their contribution to unfolding events and then sit around being enigmatic. Our heroes, Lilly Martin and Ben Tierney, spend far too much time thinking about sex for two people who are supposedly moments away from imminent death most of the time and their competition to see who can endure the most pain and injury to gather fire wood is excruciatingly dull.

I also found the plot dragging like a wet weekend with no books to read. The numerous sex scenes (including the “are-we/they-going-to-have-sex?” scenes and the “ooh-we-just-had-sex” scenes) didn’t help move things along for me either. The police procedural elements of the book were few and far between (I was far more worried about the presumably murdered women than anyone in the book seemed to be) and there simply wasn’t a heck of a lot else happening (snow fell, people had sex). What little action occurred was all fairly predictable and long before the ending I had given up caring which of the repugnant individuals I’d met would turn out to be the killer.

To top it all off there were too many things I just didn’t buy in the story. Revealing most of them would qualify as spoilers but I can ponder publicly whether a policeman who’d pulled a gun on a 9-year old child while drunk on duty would ever be given another job in law enforcement. Surely even in America this could never happen. And I can also suggest that from the moment Lilly first told him she suspected he was the killer, Ben Tierney’s behaviour was utterly and ridiculously incomprehensible. I know this is fiction and there must be plot devices but there has to be more art to them than the kind of eye-roll inducing nonsense that peppered this tale.

If it were just the endless sex scenes and impossibly rugged heroes I would recommend the book to the many readers who like that kind of thing that just isn’t to my taste. But I can’t think of anyone who’d want to spend any time at all with the parade of truly repulsive characters in this book.

 

Review: Mad Mouse by Chris Grabenstein

Title: Mad Mouse

Author: Chris Grabenstein

Narrator: Jeff Woodman

Publisher: Audible Inc [2007]

ISBN: n/a [downloaded from audible.com]

Length: 8 hours 10 minutes

Setting: New Jersey, USA, present day

Genre: Police Procedural

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating: 4/5

One-liner: Great narration of a light-hearted book that does make you think a little too.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

It’s nearly the end of summer in Sea Haven, New Jersey, but one last beach party is planned before the tourists leave for the winter. The party is threatened however when someone starts shooting the good people of Sea Haven, first with paint ball guns but then with real bullets. It appears that the targets of the sniper might be part-time, rookie policeman Danny Boyle and his friends so Danny’s partner John Ceepak has even more than the usual imperative to quickly find the culprit.

I read and reviewed Tilt-A-Whirl, the first book in this series, in October and it’s rare for me to read series books in such quick succession. However, I needed a book with broad appeal for a long car trip with a couple of friends and, frankly, I did wonder if my enjoyment of the first one was a bit of an aberration (it being such a ‘feel-good’ book and me being such a bitter old cynic). Happily I loved Mad Mouse just as much as the first book (as did my two friends, neither of whom read much crime fiction).

Whereas other ‘feel-good’ books drive me to drink and/or mutter under my breath I am quite entranced by this series. I think in part it’s the sense of humour displayed by the narrator, Danny Boyle, which nicely offsets the perfectness of John Ceepak. It’s also partly due to the fact that even though the books are somewhat light they do tackle some tough subjects. Mad Mouse, with its double-meaning title, explores the impact that people’s actions have on those around them, even relatively minor actions that are quickly forgotten by all but one person, and also takes a look at the damage parental expectations can have on their children. The three of us who were listening together talked for quite some time about these issues after we’d finished listening to the book.

The series also has a nicely developing partnership between Danny Boyle and John Ceepak and in Mad Mouse we learn a little more about their personalities . In the weeks since the events of Tilt-A-Whirl Danny has matured a little and is now certain he wants to be a full-time police officer. Ceepak hasn’t changed too much although he does start to poke a little gentle fun at himself and is also sweetly tongue-tied when the teenage son of a woman he’s met tries to convince him to ask his mother out on a date. There’s a nice mentoring role between Ceepak and Danny and I am already wondering what will happen to these two in the next book.

I’m quite chuffed to discover that my enjoyment of the first book in this series was no aberration as there are several more for me still to read. The story was engaging, the characters delightful and the narration superb.

 

Review: Publish or Perish by Margot Kinberg

Title: Publish or Perish

Author: Margot Kinberg

Publisher: Eloquent Books [2008]

ISBN: 978-1-60693-747-1

Length: 211 pages

Genre: Amateur sleuth/police procedural

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating: 3.5/5

One-liner: A light and delightful mystery

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Nick Merrill is a graduate student at Tilton University where he is also a tutor and software developer. He’s popular with his students, is juggling sexual relationships with two women and looks like being successful in both an academic and commercial sense with his new software. Unfortunately for Nick, Tilton University is a hotbed of insecure, ruthless and desperate people, any of whom could have it in for him. His two love interests find out about each other, his fellow graduate student is incensed when Nick receives an award she believes is due to her and his academic mentor might just be taking credit for Nick’s hard work in a last-ditch effort to obtain tenured status.

I have read Margot Kinberg’s excellent blog for a while now and one of the things that is crystal clear is that she is a fan of classic crime fiction, in particular the work of Agatha Christie. It probably won’t come as any surprise then that this book reminded me in some ways of those great Christie tales in which readers are introduced to the victim and all the potential suspects before a murder takes place. It didn’t really strike me until I re-read a couple of Christie novels this year that this particular style of introducing people doesn’t happen much anymore but when done well, as it is here, it’s an excellent way to draw readers quickly into the story because you ‘know’ the victim and are invested in finding out which of these people you’ve met is a killer. In procedurals and even in most ‘cosy’ mysteries someone stumbles across the body of an unknown person and only meets the suspects after the murder has occurred which means you never see the characters behaving ‘normally’. Introducing them all before the death gives a different, more intimate, perspective that I find I really enjoy.

There’s a full cast of interesting characters here including Joel Williams who is a former policeman turned Professor at the University whose classes are observed by Nick as part of his work as a research assistant. When there is a murder, and then another one, Williams uses his contacts at the police station to learn what’s happening with the investigation and uses his own skills and access to University personnel and students to assist the police with the case. Even some of his students get in on the act in a quite delightful thread although they soon decide that murder investigation is a little more dangerous than what they’ve seen on TV.

As Kinberg is herself an Associate Professor at an American University I can only presume that she has depicted the environment well which means it must be a scary place to work! It reminded me of those small town mysteries I enjoy so much where all the characters are connected in some way and seemingly all have at least one secret the want kept hidden. I would recommend the book to anyone who wants a light, well-written mystery without a lot of blood and violence and lots of good old-fashioned plot threads to unravel.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Full Disclosure: I won a copy of this book in a ‘name a character’ competition at the author’s website

Publish or Perish has also been reviewed at Mysteries in Paradise, Petrona and DJ’s Krimiblog

 

Review: Too Close to Home by Linwood Barclay

Title: Too Close to Home

Author: Linwood Barclay

Publisher: Orion Books [2009]

ISBN: 978-1-4091-0209-0

Length: 466 pages

Genre: Thriller

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating: 2.5/5

One-liner: A bit superficial and predictable for me but those who like plot twists and turns should enjoy it.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Teenager Derek Cutter has a plan. He’ll hide in his next door neighbour and best friend Adam Langley’s house when Adam and his parents go on holidays. Then Derek will have a venue for hooking up with his girlfriend Penny. Things go awry when the Langley family returns home only an hour after leaving but while Derek is trying to work out how to sneak out without being discovered the entire Langley family is killed by intruders. The next morning Derek’s parents, Jim and Ellen, are shocked to learn of their neighbours’ fate and Derek says nothing about what he saw or heard the previous night. However, Jim Cutter learns some things that make him wonder if the Langley family were killed mistakenly.

I read, and thoroughly enjoyed, Barclay’s No Time for Goodbye earlier this year and what grabbed me most were the thoughtful depictions of a couple’s individual and joint struggles in a time of crisis for their family. In Too Close to Home the characters were not nearly as engaging. Jim Cutter, whose point of view occupies most of the book, is superficial and he didn’t seem to react authentically to much of what was going on in his life. His response to people he didn’t like (punching them) was juvenile and became dull (he did it four times that I can recall) and overall I was bored by him. I never bought Ellen’s character at all but I can’t really say why without giving away spoilers but I think she waited far too long in terms of the internal logic of the story to share her secret with her husband. The only person who I really thought was depicted well was their teenage son Derek but he wasn’t enough of a pivotal role to hold the book together for me.

I also struggled to maintain interest in the plot. It seemed to take forever to get going and, aside from a few minor surprises, was quite predictable. The killer was obvious to me at the moment of their introduction and, even though it had three twists too many, the end of the convoluted plagiarism thread was easy to forecast. There seemed to me to be too many ideas jammed into this one story and so nothing really got explored terribly deeply and the fact that one thread was a very (very) long and obvious red herring didn’t really work.

The book is not terrible. But, as is the way of things, if something grabs my heart in some way I forgive its flaws and when something doesn’t grab me I do admit to becoming overly picky. For tangible and intangible reasons this book just didn’t grab me and so I’ve undoubtedly gotten hot under the collar about things that don’t really matter. However if you haven’t tried Linwood Barclay yet I’d recommend No Time For Goodbye.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

I reviewed Linwood Barclay’s No Time for Goodbye in February this year

Other, far more positive, reviews of Too Close to Home can be found at Material Witness (who thinks it’s a better book than No Time for Goodbye), Peeking Between the Pages and A Bookworm’s World

 

Review: Sworn to Silence by Linda Castillo

Title: Sworn to Silence

Author: Linda Castillo

Narrator: Kathleen McInerney

Publisher: MacMillan Audio [2009]

ISBN: n/a (downloaded from audible.com]

Length: 11hrs 43mins

Genre: Police Procedural (small town)

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating: 3.5/5

One-liner: Engaging characters in an interesting setting but I could do without the violence .

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

One night in the middle of winter a body is discovered in the snow in a small town of Painters Mill, Ohio. The woman appears to have been brutally murdered in a way that reminds everyone of a series of murders which took place in the area 16 years previously. The one person who doesn’t believe the same killer, named the Slaughterhouse Killer at the time, is active again is the town’s Police Chief Kate Burkholder. She shares a secret with two other people about that previous string of murders which makes her almost positive it’s a different killer. Accordingly she points the current investigation in other directions but the town’s other officials bring in outside help to ensure that the investigation focuses on any links to the Slaughterhouse Killer case.

The most engaging aspect of this book for me is the character of Kate Burkholder and the aspects of town life that are depicted through her. The area is home to an Amish community, of which Kate was a member until she was 18, and there is some unrest between the other townspeople and the Amish. Although Kate is no longer Amish her brother and sister are still in the community and overall she respects the Amish community even though she chose not to join it. She is a focal point for relationships between the town’s two divergent cultures and I am a sucker for stories which feature religions different to the one I was brought up with. Kate also struggles for much of the book with the knowledge that her secret may be forcing her to take actions which are not in the best interests of solving the case and I thought this complex issue was portrayed very realistically.

Overall the story was well paced: not screaming along at thriller pace but nor did it plod. There were several minor climax points before the ending and I didn’t lose my attention once. As well as being intrigued by Kate, my interest was held by an array of minor characters, mainly working in the police station. The seeds of a series were most obvious with this introduction of an engaging cast although I can’t envisage endless storylines in this setting.

I did struggle with other parts of the book. I found the burgeoning relationship between Kate and one of the external investigators brought in to help, John Tomasetti, too predictable and a bit soppy. However this probably won’t bother most readers who can’t be as unromantic as me. There were also a few plot points I found stretching my credibility metre. At one point for example someone is framed as the perpetrator of the murders and I just could not buy that everyone but Kate was so gullible as to accept the most unlikely killer. However my real issue was with the overly graphic depictions of the violence visited upon the victims of the killer (because of course one body is never enough). It really didn’t add anything to the story to have several paragraphs of bodily mutilations described for each victim and, rarely for me, I wished I was reading rather than listening so I could skip those bits.

Sworn to Silence offers a really solid story, some engaging characters and an interesting setting (although perhaps I got extra enjoyment because each mention of the wintry snow made me forget, momentarily, our unseasonal heatwave). However I’d like to see the next book avoid the overly gruesome violence.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

The book is very well narrated by Katherine McInerney and the audible version that I bought has a nice bonus in the form of an interview with the author. It’s an interview by the publisher so it’s not exactly hard-hitting but does provide an opportunity for Castillo to talk about her research methodologies (she has completed two lots of civilian police training among many other activities) and she gives some good background to the book. Unfortunately she wasn’t asked about the value of the detailed and gruesome depictions of the violent mutilations of the victims and whether or not she thought the book could have been just as good without them.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

This book has also been reviewed at Petrona (where Maxine shared my concerns about the violence but not about the romance), Lesa’s Book Critiques, Book Addiction and Whimpulsive

 

Review: Tell No One by Harlan Coben

Title: Tell No One

Author: Harlan Coben

Publisher: Orion Books [originally 2000, this edition 2007]

ISBN: 978-1-4091-1702-5

Length: 346 pages

Genre: Thriller

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating: 3.5/5

One-liner: A frenetically paced, superbly plotted yarn.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Eight years ago David Beck and his wife Elizabeth took their annual trip to the remote place where they had shared their first kiss. That night Beck was beaten and his wife kidnapped. She was found dead several days later, apparently the victim of a serial killer. Beck has since put some semblance of a life back together but it quickly unravels when he starts to receive messages that appear to be from his supposedly dead wife at the same time as two bodies are found in the spot where Elizabeth was kidnapped from. As Beck tries to determine if his wife might be alive after all, the authorities become convinced it was Beck not the serial killer who was responsible for her death and some nefarious characters who seem to know what really happened eight years ago take whatever action is necessary to ensure no one else finds out the truth.

I know it’s an over-used phrase but this book was, for me, a genuine page turner. Sure there are coincidences and plot contrivances to be found but I still read the book as quickly as I physically could, sneaking a few pages whenever I had a spare moment. The original premise hooked me immediately and the story, although far-fetched, sustained its internal logic throughout. There were multiple switches in point of view from first person (Beck’s) to third (virtually everyone else’s at one point or another) which helped give the frantic sense that lots of action was taking place simultaneously.

While the yarn was enjoyable unfortunately the characters were a little too predictable and trite for me to really connect with. Beck is so full of wholesome goodness (he’s a white doctor in a ghetto neighbourhood who never judges anyone not even the pregnant 12-year olds and is still in love with his dead high school sweetheart and is even kind to puppy dogs….) that if I met him in real life I’d want to beat him myself. Almost all of the rest of the characters are stereotypes too: the drug dealer with a heart of gold who helps Beck to go on the run and the evil generic Asian who has seen too much and can kill a man with his bare hands and so on. About the only character who I was really interested in as a person rather than a plot device was Beck’s best friend Shauna the plus size model who “stalks into a room as though it offends her”.

However, in a thriller more than almost any other genre plot is king and I can’t go past the fact that the book kept me interested from the first page to the last.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

For some quite unfathomable reason I’ve never read any of Coben’s other books but based on the writing here I’m keen to try more so if you have a favourite Harlan Coben book or can tell me whether or not I need to start at the beginning of his Myron Bolitar series let me know in the comments below.

This book was supplied to me free by the First Reads program at goodreads.com (how a book that’s been available since 2000 qualifies as ‘first read’ has me baffled but I’m grateful for the book anyway).

Tell No One has been reviewed at Jen’s Book Thoughts and You’ve Gotta Read This,

 

Review: Murder Between the Covers by Elaine Viets

Title: Murder Between the Covers (the second dead-end job mystery)

Author: Elaine Viets

Publisher: Signet

ISBN:1-86254-486-7

Length: 268 pages

Genre: Amateur sleuth/cosy

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating: 2.5/5

One-liner: A light, undemanding read

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Helen Hawthorne works for cash at Page Turners, a family owned bookstore in South Florida. The proprietor, Page Turner III, is horrible to staff and customers alike and few people are upset when he is murdered. Helen is forced to investigate his death when her friend Peggy is arrested for his murder and finds that almost everyone who knew Page Turner had a good motive for killing him.

The interesting fact behind this series (which as of this year will run to eight books) is that before writing each book Elaine Viets does the jobs that she describes in the book. She was, according to her website FAQ, a bookseller for over a year before (or perhaps while) writing Murder Between the Covers. I’m sure this is what helps to give the bookstore and its myriad of demanding, (and only occasionally lovely) customers. Having done my share of time in jobs dealing with the general public I found much to relate to in that aspect of the book.

The rest of the book is fairly standard for the genre. Each potential suspect is eliminated, generally via direct questioning, until there’s only one potential killer remaining and most of this was done quite believably although the ending was a little too contrived.  There are a series of oddball characters, such as Helen’s purple-loving 76-year-old landlady, Margery, who provided the kind of humour I tend to like in my cosies.

My one problem with the book is that I never quite bought into the Helen character. The premise is that she works for cash because any income she earns officially has to be shared with her ex-husband so even though she’s well-educated she works ‘dead-end jobs’. I suspect that in the real world someone smart in similar circumstances would just get themselves some good quality fake identification and get a better paying job. So there were quite a few points when I thought “well you really don’t have to be in that situation” and so I couldn’t summon up the sympathy I’m sure I was supposed to have.

 

 

Review: Tilt A Whirl by Chris Grabenstein

Title: Tilt A Whirl

Author: Chris Grabenstein

Publisher: Audible Inc [2007]

ISBN: n/a [downloaded from audible.com]

Length: 8 hours 18 minutes

Setting: New Jersey, USA, present day

Genre: Police Procedural

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating: 4/5

One-liner: Brilliantly narrated and entertaining feel-good book.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Sea Haven, on the New Jersey shore, is overrun by summer tourists and the most serious crime is a stole bike. One Saturday morning two local police officers, John Ceepak, a former MP, and Danny Boyle, a rookie part-timer, see a hysterical young girl covered in blood. She tells them her father was shot in the local amusement park. Ceepak is asked by his old army buddy who is now the Police Chief to head up the investigation into Reginald Hart’s murder and he also gives his word to Ashley, the young girl, that he’ll protect her from the danger which still surrounds her.

If you had told me that every time I pressed stop I’d be itching to get back to a single-body whodunit narrated by a 20-something party animal and featuring a goody-two-shoes ex-soldier who lives by a corny moral code I’d have given you the look. The “I don’t think you have a clue and thanks for nothing” look. But, based on the infinitesimally small chance I might be wrong, I accepted a passionate audio book recommendation from Belle (of Ms Bookish) and was thoroughly entertained from start to finish.

First I must mention that Jeff Woodman is a superb narrator: managing to give a completely different yet realistic sounding voice (complete with regional accent) to more than a dozen characters of different ages and genders. I have no doubt that his skill is part of the reason I so thoroughly enjoyed the book and had such vivid images of the setting and characters in my head.

I thought the choice of narrative voice in the story was a particularly good one. Using someone who is an observer and a participant in the action worked well, especially when combined with the fact that Danny Boyle is a rookie working with a more experienced policeman. This provided plausible opportunities for the kind of explanatory scenes and missed bits of action that can become clunky in first-person narratives. Danny also turned out to be a likable, engaging young man with a good sense of humour and the story unfolded quite naturally through his eyes.

The use of a ‘Duddley Do-Right’ style character in the form of John Ceepak (whose life motto is ‘neither lie nor cheat not steal nor tolerate those who do) is a risk because I cannot possibly be the only potential reader who is wary of such fantasies. However, even though he is too good to be truly credible, I found myself interested in his back story and smiling at his all around good-guy-ness and rooting for him to triumph over the bad guys. Maybe even natural born cynics like me need to take a day off from being jaded every once in a while.

Although there were some corny, predictable lines the broader story kept me guessing right to the end, the New Jersey Shore setting felt realistic, the characters were charming and overall it was the literary equivalent of a feel good movie. I’ll definitely be listening to the rest of this series (though unlike Belle who gobbled them all up at once I’m going to space them out).

Other stuff

Here is a review by Belle (from Ms Bookish) (thanks again for the recommendation) and a review of the whole series by Beth (from Beth Fish Reads) who introduced Belle to the series. Don’t you love the way the book blogging world works?

 

Review: The Unorthodox Murder of Rabbi Wahl by Joseph Telushkin

Title: The Unorthodox Murder of Rabbi Wahl (the 1st Daniel Winter mystery)

Author: Joseph Telushkin

Publisher: Bantam Books [1987]

ISBN: 0553258095

Length: 180 pages

Setting: Los Angeles, USA, contemporary present day

Genre: Amateur sleuth (with a smidgen of police procedural)

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating: 3.5/5

One-liner: An off-beat setting for a classic whodunnit.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

As well as being the Rabbi for a small Los Angeles synagogue Daniel Winter hosts a religious-themed radio show. One Sunday evening he puts together a panel of three women who are outspoken on the issue of feminism and general womens’ issues. One of these women is Rabbi Myra Wahl who is from a different synagogue in the city. The show is a lively one but towards the end Myra Wahl hurls an extremely offensive insult at Daniel Winter and when she begs his forgiveness he does not give it. As she jogs home from the radio station she is killed by a hit and run driver and Daniel is soon a prime suspect although Myra Wahl has made several other enemies in her young life. Daniel is provided information that the police don’t have access to and so runs a somewhat parallel investigation to the official one.

Reading a lot of mysteries as I do it’s difficult to find settings and characters that I haven’t seen a hundred times before so I was attracted to the premise of this book. Happily the execution lived up to the promise. In tandem with the classically well constructed plot was an exploration of the sorts of subjects we’re normally advised against discussing in polite company including religion, abortion and the treatment of homosexuality in the Jewish faith. I’m not sure that I’d want all my books to be so serious but I found it refreshing to read something of a ‘cosy’ that isn’t populated by women who shop.

Daniel Winter is a very likable character although he seems a bit too perfect to believe. However a minor thread of the novel, in which he has to decide if he wants to continue being a Rabbi or become a full-time radio host with a national show, made him seem more human. The only other character depicted with any real depth is Brenda Goldstein, a some-time member of his synagogue and a police psychologist who becomes involved in the investigation of Wahl’s murder. The one character I found difficult to swallow was Lieutenant Joe Cerezzi who is ostensibly in charge of the case but who seems remarkably cavalier about allowing a psychologist and a Rabbi to do almost all of the investigating.

Ultimately I found the depiction of both the rituals of the Jewish religion and some sensitive issues as seen from the point of view of a Rabbi a quite refreshing change from the more traditional mystery settings. It was definitely this aspect of the novel that led to me reading it in a couple of sittings as the mystery itself was perfectly serviceable but nothing extraordinary.

Other stuff

In all there were three books in this series although Josepth Telushkin, himself a Rabbi, has many non-fiction and religious works published as well.

 

Review: Bones by Jonathan Kellerman

Title: Bones (the 23rd Alex Delaware novel)

Author: Jonathan Kellerman

Publisher: ISIS Audio Books (this edition 2009)

ISBN: 9780753140802

Length: 11 hours

Narrator: Jeff Harding

Setting: Los Angeles, USA, present day

Genre: Police Procedural

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating: 2/5

One-liner: A dull, predictable yarn that isn’t about bones at all. Or much else.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

The mutilated body of a young woman is discovered in a protected marsh area in Los Angeles. Veteran LAPD Detective Milo Sturgis is called in to assist a rookie Detective by the name of Moses Reed. Naturally Milo brings his friend, psychologist Alex Delaware, along for the ride. A few more bodies are uncovered and there are hints that a prominent local family might be involved in the grizzly deaths.I stopped reading this series somewhere around book 9 or 10 due to their repetitive nature. And I chose this one from my local library’s meagre selection of audio books on the grounds that …well…it’s a meagre selection of audio books. So I’m admitting up front that I was undoubtedly going to struggle to love this book, although I am ever the optimist. Sadly I found the story dull and lacking credibility and it’s another that I’d like to assign the one-word review: meh.

People killing other people for garden variety motives like jealousy or the prospect of a large inheritance isn’t enough for Kellerman. If the world was as populated by knife-wielding psychopaths as he’d have us believe I’d never leave the house. Of course this is fiction and it doesn’t have to be realistic but I think Kellerman constantly ascribing his murders to the most twisted of people (who of course aren’t like ‘us’) allows him to avoid exploring an actual human emotion within the context of his stories.

The plot is equally uninspiring. It’s convoluted (I’m convinced that he added one of the evil doers at the end and then inserted them randomly in the story already written) and has all the suspense of a tax return. This time there isn’t even a fabrication of a reason why child psychologist Alex Delaware is involved in the case. In the earlier books there was at least be a pretence of a reason: a client of Alex’s or the relative of one would be involved or the case would somehow relate to the mistreatment of children for example, but here it just seemed to be universally accepted that a private sector psychologist would be involved in every facet of an investigation.

In short the book was formulaic, the characters stereotypical and the brand-name laden writing was plodding. Kellerman can do much better, in a standalone novel called The Butcher’s Theatre he tells a gripping tale and tackles some weighty political and social issues in the Jerusalem setting even though it too features a serial killer, but perhaps he lacks the incentive now that he’s a brand name all of his own.