Karen’s Blog

The Only Suspect by Jonnie Jacobs

 
Hmm, can there be any mystery without twins as the answer? Okay, I know, there are plenty, but it seems all-too-common lately.

Anyway, this is a good page-turner, and a classic murder mystery. The main character, Sam Russell, is a doctor in small-town California who wakes up one Sunday morning with his car in a ditch, his wife of two years missing, and he has no memory of the night before.Nothing is as it seems. Sam lost his beloved first wife to a murder years before in Boston. He was accused and went to trial for that murder, but was freed because of one juror. His in-laws never believed his innocence then, and contested the custody of his daughter in a bitter battle. Afterwards, he descended into an alcoholic stupor for a time, but is now sober. His first assumption is that he had been drinking, the only explanation he can come up with for not remembering anything.

As Sam and the local police detectives - one hostile to him, and the other, a sympathetic female who seems to believe him despite herself - try to both find his missing wife, and in Sam’s case, figure out what happened during that blank period, the plot takes turn after turn until near the end you almost want to take notes. As I said, nothing and no one but Sam and his immediate family are who they first seem to be.

A good page-turner if you like mysteries, you’ll like this one! And no, I’m not gonna tell you which character is the twin of who! Moral of the story - you should really ask a few questions of someone before you marry him or her!

Faithless by Karin Slaughter


If Karin Slaughter had been born into a family with a different name, do you think she’d still be writing suspense novels? Just wondering … I mean, would you pick up a cookbook by someone with that last name? I bet it would give you pause …The book titled Faithless is one of hers I read when I picked it up at the BEA in 2005. I recently found it again in a box, and it was a good book. It was a mystery that wasn’t entirely predictable, which is always a good thing. The main characters are a small-town Georgia pediatrician/coroner, her family, her policeman ex-and-future husband (they’re divorced but reconciling) and his detective subordinate, Lena. Nearly everyone in the story has a complicated back-story, and that includes the murder victim at the heart of the story. She was a member of a very religious family that runs a communal farm in the adjacent county, which also brings in employees from among the homeless in Atlanta, with varying successes.This is not a story for the innocent or naive, it includes characters dealing with abortion, brutally abusive relationships, graphic violence, infidelity, and religious issues, good and bad, among other less prickly matters. But you do get a feel for the people involved, and few of them completely fit the stereotype to which they are initially assigned.

I found it a quick read, but a good, absorbing one, and because I also run a pet website Pet of the Day.com I have to say the pediatricians two rescue greyhounds do also figure into the story, but more of in a comic-relief sort of role. The book is not all dark and serious, it does have some light-hearted moments, and all in all is a good, satisfying read. I recommend it to anyone who likes a good mystery, but isn’t too squeamish about just about anything.

Hot Blooded by Lisa Jackson

You know an author has made it, when before you even see the “New York Times Bestselling Author” on the cover, you notice her name is set in a (much) bigger typeface than the actual title of the book. So it is with Lisa Jackson. She’s a mystery writer, and I have read, and enjoyed, her work before.


This is a mystery in the classic sense. Strong woman main character, but with a “past,” male villian who is completely evil, and other targets to lead up to the inevitable confrontation. As is often the case in such novels, the other murders before the main character is threatened are prostitutes, and the main character, Dr. Sam, A.k.a. Samantha, is not only wealthy but beautiful, and a celebrity - a radio talk show host and psychologist. And single, of course, so there is the requisite tension between the love interest, the villian and the reader getting to figure out which is which, and how they all fit into the equation.


All in all, a quick read. Fun if you like murder-mystery books, and it will keep you guessing. It is also set in Lousiana, so there is plenty of “local color,” and we all, because of Hurricane Katrina, even have heard of Lake Ponchetrain, not just New Orleans. Plenty of R-rated stuff, so not for the kiddies, and Jackson does sustain the tension until the very last chapter, and the reveal.


If you like mysteries, you’ll like this!

The Breathtaker by Alice Blanchard

This was an excellent story, creepy, suspenseful, and a little gory in parts. The title is taken from a term for tornadoes, as one can seem to suck the air from where you stand. This was published in 2003, and even made the Today Show bookclub.

Policeman Charlie Grover, who is a widower and the father of a teenage daughter, and local tornado expert and stormchaser Willa Bellman team up as murders are taking place near the scenes of tornados, and made to seem like part of the storm’s destruction. The big giveaway occurs when a storm doesn’t take the path the killer thought it might, so the scheme is revealed, and other recent “tornado deaths” re-examined. Charlie’s father is a stormchaser himself, as are many locals, so the pool of suspects is not exactly small. Local legends from a city further south turn out to have significance. There is your requisite romance, both for Charlie and for his daughter, though they don’t take center stage or distract from the central story, which I appreciate.

I like it - murder mystery and some science education all in one, though as I said, it does get a little gory - if you cannot take precise descriptions of pieces of wood being pulled from bodies without getting squeamish, you might want to skip this one. Still, what is a murder mystery without some blood, right?