The Invisible Guardian, by Delores Redondo*-**

Posted on February 18, 2016 by seattlebookmama

theinvisibleguardian The Invisible Guardian has received widespread acclaim in Spain. It will be available to English speaking audiences March 8, 2016. My thanks go to Net Galley and Atria Books for the DRC, which I received in exchange for an honest review. I rate this book 3.5 stars and round upward.

The title comes from the Basajaun, which translates to “invisible guardian”. It’s a mythological creature, large, hairy, filled with kind intentions; sort of a goodhearted Bigfoot. Protagonist Amaia Salazar is a detective who finds herself drawn back to the Basque country, where she grew up and where her family resides, in order to solve a mystery. Locally, many residents regard the Basajaun as undeniable reality. Salazar deals with this, in addition to limitless family drama, in order to solve the crime.

I really struggled with this novel. There were times I felt I was being talked to death, and I am guessing that Basque conversational tradition may be very different from that of the US. I was stunned that a detective would be permitted to run an investigation in which her own family members are considered suspects, but since it isn’t discussed beyond a brief conversation in which Salazar is offered the chance to hand the case off to someone else, it is probably a thing that is done in that part of the world. I can’t see how it would become an international best seller if not. Or perhaps I am naïve.

At times it feels as if there was far too much personal drama, and it seems to distract from the mystery. Some of it turns out to be germane to the case, and other parts are included primarily to develop the protagonist. On top of the relationship issues between Salazar and siblings, Salazar and in-laws, and Salazar and her colleague, she is trying to become pregnant, and we have to deal with her feelings about that. If it were up to me, the pregnancy thread would be yanked and saved for a future installment if used at all. It seems like one thing too many.

I did a huge eye-roll during the scene in which a local resident wants to know whether the body was bitten by a bear or the Basajaun, and Salazar explains that it’s too early in the investigation to know, one way or the other. There are also hideous sexist assumptions and statements in the dialogue throughout the book, but these will be dealt with near the end, so don’t abandon the story over this alone.

To the positive, I wanted to read this novel partly to stretch my own cultural boundaries, and in that I succeeded. When I think of Spain, I tend to think—as urban dwellers often do—of its cities, art, and music. I knew nothing, nothing, nothing about the Basque people. I still don’t know a great deal, but I got my toes wet, and everyone has to start somewhere.

In addition, Redondo can tell setting like nobody else. The descriptions of areas I have never been and never will are adroit and visceral. I felt as if I were the invisible presence standing alongside Salazar.

It seems unfortunate that there is new information introduced during the last ten percent of the novel, without which the reader has no possible opportunity to unravel the mystery. However, the plot and pace pick up significantly, and many of what seem to be extraneous story elements are braided together so deftly that my overall impression of the novel is greatly improved.

For those interested in learning more about the Basque culture, this novel is recommended.

Clawback, by JA Jance*****

Posted on February 16, 2016 by seattlebookmama

clawback I’m a long time reader of novels by JA Jance, but until I read this new release, I would have told you that her Arizona series are second string efforts compared to the JP Beaumont titles set in Seattle. Not anymore! Thank you to Net Galley and Touchstone Publishers for the DRC, which I read in exchange for an honest review. The book will be available to the public March 8.

Ali Reynolds is our protagonist. Her parents have retired, investing their lifelong savings with a company that turns out to be involved in a Ponzi scheme. Ali’s father goes to see his investment agent, who has also been a close friend for decades, and finds him dying. In attempting to revive him and another person, Dad gets the victims’ blood all over himself, and so he is suspected of murder when he calls 911. In an effort to help clear her father, Ali, along with her parents and those with whom she works at High Noon, unravels one layer after another of deception and danger.

Those that read my reviews know that I am always sensitive to the subtext. In addition to telling a well woven, technically savvy tale of suspense, Jance is brilliant here in the way she crafts her female characters. She takes apart almost every conceivable stereotype without pausing the story’s pace or becoming preachy or conspicuous. As the mother of a half-Asian daughter, I particularly appreciated the development of Cami. But even for those that don’t care much about social issues as reflected in text, it’s a tightly wound tale that will leave any reader leaning forward in their easy chair, straining to get to that last page and the denouement.

Besides enjoying the mystery, I also learned some things. I had never heard of a “clawback”, a terrible law that has to do with penalties that are assessed victims of Ponzi schemes, and I had also never heard of a “Silver alert”. I read a lot of nonfiction, but Jance’s new book is a great reminder that we can learn things from fiction too, and it’s often more fun that way.

Highly recommended to everyone.

Far From True, by Linwood Barclay****

Posted on February 13, 2016 by seattlebookmama

farfromtrue Barclay is an established writer, with a number of best sellers to his credit, but he was new to me. My thanks go to Net Galley and Berkley Publishing Group for providing me with a DRC in exchange for an honest review.

And indeed, it does take a pro to weave such an intricate plot so adroitly. But let’s take it from the top and go from there.

The story is set in Promise Falls, an ironically named town that contains more trouble than you can imagine. The initial crisis takes place at the drive-in movie theater, the last showing before the place closes up and the property is sold. But then the unthinkable happens.

Like most disasters, this one triggers a flurry of other emergencies erupt related to the victims of the theater tragedy. There are greedy relatives, heartsick loved ones, and other events and individuals that are just bizarre. And then there are more bodies, and the number “23” appears over and over again, a grim warning.

Some mystery novels are great for the classroom. This one isn’t. In fact, if I were a school librarian I wouldn’t buy it either. Leave this one for consenting adults.

For us, there is more flexibility. There are some parts that are more sexually explicit than your average detective novel, and readers know whether or not they find this appealing. If you have read Barclay’s other mysteries, perhaps you already have some notion of what is in store. But if, like me, you come to this title without having read the first book in the Promise Falls series, you can dive in as if it were a stand-alone mystery. There is no prior knowledge assumed.

I liked the story in spite of the kinky stuff that reached beyond my own perception of what is tasteful. The suspense was so palpable, and the many subplots so well woven throughout the text that I expected to rate this title five stars. I read several books at a time, and for awhile this was my “dessert” mystery, the book I reached for after I had dispatched my obligation to the publisher for a title I had not enjoyed as much. While there were a couple of situations that confused me sometimes—we have two new couples that are starting a relationship while all this unfolds, and I tended to mix them up, and which kid was whose again?—most of the characters were distinct and developed sufficiently that I knew who they were and what they were like when the story bounced back to their point of view. Frequent changes in setting, character, and point of view heightened the suspense.

I was eternally grateful not to have a protagonist agonizing over whether or not to stop at the bar, whether or not to have just one beer. Heaven save me from any more agonized alcoholic main characters. And so this was a relief.

Ultimately though, the ending left me feeling cheated, and that is where the final star fell off my rating. To be sure it was a surprise ending, but it felt dissonant and tacked on. I often can’t tell how much I like a good story until I see the ending, and that was surely true here.

Nevertheless, it’s a solid piece of fiction, and worth your time and dime. Unless you have deep, deep pockets, I don’t think I would go full hard jacket price for this one, but if you can obtain it at a discount, digitally, or in paperback, it’s a fun read for a chilly late winter weekend.

This title will be available for purchase March 8.

Bad News and Trouble, by Maxine O’Callaghan****

Posted on February 11, 2016 by seattlebookmama

I am always on the lookout for a new, well written female detective series. There are some Grand Masters out there that I adore, but the problem is that I can read faster than they can write. So when I was given the opportunity to check out Delilah West, a sleuth whose stories originated during the latter half of the 20th century, I jumped on it, and I am so glad I did. Thank you, Brash Books Priority Reviewers Circle, for the free DRC. This book is available for sale now.

Delilah West may be cozy at times, but she is never cutesy or smarmy, and “never pert”. She never wonders why she didn’t bring her gun, because she always has the sense to have it with her. In Bad News and Trouble, we are treated to seven short stories, each of which is a separate case that Delilah describes to us. The suspense is thick, but now and then the feverish pace slackens just long enough to bring a good, hearty guffaw from the reader. Each episode is set primarily in California. She is a lone wolf, independent and smart as hell. She knows how to get things done, and she never has to call on a big strong man to save her personal ass. Believe it.

My favorite among the stories is second to the last, “Going to the Dogs”, a case in which a client is convinced that someone out there is trying to steal one of her dogs. I won’t give away the goods, but I will tell you that it kept me on the edge of my seat, made me laugh out loud more than once, and the ending was unusually satisfying.

You’ll have to excuse me now. Brash has more Delilah West stories on tap, and I am going to go find them. You should do the same.

The Tin Roof Blowdown, by James Lee Burke*****

Posted on February 9, 2016 by seattlebookmama

Sometimes people say they “ran across” a book, and that is close to how I came to read James Lee Burke for the first time. I had been tidying up for company, and my daughter had selected this book from the “free” pile at school, then decided she didn’t want it. She is a teenager, so instead of finding our charity box and putting it there, she dropped it on the upstairs banister. I scooped it up in irritation..then looked at it again. Flipped it over…read the blurb about the writer. This man is a rare winner of TWO Edgars. Really? I examined the title again; I hadn’t read any novels based on Hurricane Katrina, so why not give it a shot?

There are about a dozen writers whose novels I will read just because they wrote them. This man is now one of them. I appreciated his ability to develop characters, deal respectfully but realistically with the tragedy and travesty that was Hurricane Katrina (followed by Rita) and recognize it as such; and keep about a million plot threads going without ever dropping anything. In fact, the complexity of the character line-up–somewhere between a dozen and fifteen important people to remember, when I was on the verge of falling asleep for the night–gave me pause, but then this is #6 in a series, so it is possible that if I’d begun with #1, some of them would have been old friends by now, with just a few new ones introduced (and some disposed of before the story was over).

The setting was entirely unfamiliar to me; I have never spent time in the deep southern part of the USA, unless you count a trip with my family to Disney World, and have never set foot in Louisiana. Burke knew it well enough for both of us. His word work was sufficient to lay the canvas before me,and the devastation that was visited upon those who had previously been poor but stable was laid bare:

“They drowned in attics and on the second floors of their houses. They drowned along the edges of Highway 23 when they tried to drive out of Plaquemines Parish. They drowned in retirement homes and in trees and on car tops while they waved frantically at helicopters flying by overhead. They died in hospitals and in nursing homes of dehydration and heat exhaustion, and they died because an attending nurse could not continue to operate a hand ventilator for hours upon hours without rest.”

He gave due credit to those who, in an official capacity or otherwise, worked tirelessly for up to 72 hours on end to save the lives of the vulnerable who had been unable to get out in time, or whose parents had made the wrong choice for them. But he also tells the truth about the condition of the levee that was supposed to protect the residents of New Orleans, and how it had been permitted to deteriorate, when Federal funds were dropped by 50% without a moment’s notice or explanation, and permitted to deteriorate worst in the Black part of town. The narration spills out with disgust the “latent racism…that was already beginning to rear its head.”

Meanwhile, our hero, cop Dave Robicheaux, is trying to find out the whereabouts of a “junkie priest” who perished trying to evacuate his parishioners, but died in the flood waters when criminals stole his boat. He also keeps track of his best friend Clete, a bail bondsman and private detective who will follow him around if he is not included in the search, because some of the people Robicheaux is trying to locate are also bail skippers, and therefore also his bread and butter. Clete is an alcoholic and makes some really bad decisions; Robicheaux tirelessly tries to keep him under his wing and under control, all the while also trying to keep his wife and daughter safe from a local mercenary he’s investigating. The bad guy knows that Robicheaux’s family is his greatest treasure, and threatens them as an attempt to make him back off.

While parts of New Orleans appear untouched by Katrina, others have had their entire infrastructures destroyed, and there are virtually no navigable roads; the waters are treacherous as well, with downed power lines and debris just below the surface. In short, he has his work cut out for him.

Burke’s bad guys are complicated characters. All come from hideous family situations, and childhood has left its unalterable mark on them, but they are layered in the depths to which they will stoop in seeking wealth, power, or simply revenge. One is capable of property crime, violence, even rape, but finds he cannot look an unarmed man in the eye and shoot him; another can do it without a hitch in his heartbeat. The street smart voices I heard within these chapters felt real to me.

But the consistent thread which lies at the core of the story, of the storm, of everything that takes place between its covers, is one which the writer has hold of like a pit bull with a rat. He has his jaws around it and shakes it without ever letting loose of it, whatever other events weave in and out of his pages, the racism that caused the most harm to be brought upon those with the fewest resources, intentionally and maliciously. He will not let go of the racism that rules New Orleans.

“The original sympathy for the evacuees from New Orleans was incurring a strange transformation. Right wing talk shows abounded with callers viscerally enraged at the fact evacuees were receiving a onetime two-thousand-dollar payment to help them buy food and find lodging. The old southern nemesis was back,naked and raw and dripping–absolute hatred for the poorest of the poor.”

I can see why this guy has a pair of Edgars to bookend his mantel. He spins a compelling, absorbing tale, and the values and priorities that lay at the core of his work are ones I share and appreciate. It was in reading this novel that I became a die-hard James Lee Burke fan. I wrote this review before I had a blog on which to put it, and this book is a must-read for those that love good fiction, good mysteries, or that care about social justice.

Angels Burning, by Tawni O’Dell*****

Posted on December 27, 2015 by seattlebookmama

angelsburning Tawni O’Dell is an experienced writer, but she is new to me. I was attracted to her working class setting and protagonist Dove Carnahan, the fifty year old police chief in a tiny Pennsylvanian coal town. I received this galley free for an honest review thanks to Net Galley and Gallery Threshold Pocket Books, and I liked it so much that now the rest of her work, some of which has been featured in the Oprah Book Club, is on my to-read list. Dispensing hilarity and palpable real life truths in equal measure, O’Dell is a keeper.

The strong characterization and the stirring immediacy of this storyline had me at hello. O’Dell’s genius and deft skill are shown by her capacity to develop her small town characters into flesh, bone, and sinew. We know Dove as if she were in front of us; we know her sister Neely; we even know Neely’s dogs.

In her 27 years in law enforcement, Dove has never had to deal with a murder before, and this one is particularly nasty. Camio Truly was just 17 years old when someone smashed her head in, dropped her down a sink hole and set fire to her body. Naturally, this murder isn’t Carnahan’s job; of course not. She has two deputies, one office worker and a busted vending machine. No, the larger and better funded neighboring cop department will deal with this problem. Yet in such a small town, every problem leads into every other problem, so she’s up to her neck in it in no time anyway.

The victim was one of many children in the Truly family. The Trulys are local rednecks whose days run into one another lulled by a steady dose of television viewing. The baby’s bottle has something brown and fizzy in it. Since the narrative is in the first person, Dove tells us herself:

“I marvel as I always do at this very specific kind of American poverty. The Trulys by most people’s standards would be considered poor, yet they were able to buy everything here that has ended up as trash in their front yard. They have a $3,000 TV and the latest phones, and I can’t imagine what they spend monthly on beer and cigarettes, but they couldn’t afford a laptop for their daughter to help her with her schoolwork or a copy of Psychology for Dummies.”

O’Dell gets some good ones in at the expense of this generally ambition-free family, but she also avoids turning them into a caricature. Eldest son Eddie lives away from the family home now, and when she talks to him about his last visit from Camio, she recognizes Eddie’s own traumatic past, which includes the deaths of two brothers and the horrors of Vietnam.

And in her interrogation of Shawna, the perpetually neglectful mother of the Truly brood, she throws us some surprises, establishing dignity and gravitas for this woman stoically enduring disappointment, heartbreak, and perpetual discouragement.

Interwoven into the murder mystery are two subplots that are more important than they appear. One is that her brother Champ, who’s been gone for twenty years, suddenly surfaces with a son; the other is that the man that spent a long stretch in jail for the murder of Dove and Neely’s mother is out of prison and harassing Dove endlessly, claiming that she sent him to prison knowing that he was not guilty.

Put it all together and it’s so much more than the sum of its parts. In fact, it’s pure gold. Janet Evanovich may have to move over and save a stool for a new regular at the Sassy Murder Writers’ Saloon. This title is super smart and the pages turn rapidly, leaving the reader with a sense of loss when it’s over. Whether you buy it for a beach trip or to curl up by the fire, this one’s a must-read, and it comes out January 5, 2016.

Alien Blues, by Lynn Hightower*****

Posted on December 16, 2015 by seattlebookmama

alienblues Alien Blues, the first in the David Silver series, was originally written in the 90’s, when I was busy returning to school, having my fourth child and raising the first three. I mention this only because I am dumbfounded that I missed this amazing series the first time around, and that’s the only possible reason; I was too busy trying to find a few minutes in which to sleep back then. Thank goodness Open Road Integrated Media has re-published it digitally. After reading and being really impressed by Flashpoint, another of Hightower’s terrific novels, I searched Net Galley for anything else she had written that was available to read and review, and I scored this little treasure. It’s a brave, bold genre cross of detective fiction and science fiction, and if I can read the others in the series, you had best believe I will.

First, of course, we have a murderer. Machete Man, as he is known, enjoys hacking his victims and their belongings into portable pieces. A nice touch is the would-be victim that gets away and can describe him. He hacks up all her stuff, and we know that if she hadn’t been as quick as she was, she would have been among the sliced and diced items in her bedroom. And I find the scene that occurs later between David’s wife Rose and Machete Man spectacular.

Into the mix we have the murder of an Elaki. Elaki are another species, but to a certain extent they work and interact with humans. They shimmer; they walk on fringe; they have flippers instead of hands. Roof tops are terribly dangerous, because they are slender and lightweight, and can easily blow away in a breeze. They are shorter than humans and because they have no legs, they must fold themselves to ride in an automobile made for humans. Their own are specially adapted. But we learn all these tidbits as we go along. Hightower doesn’t waste a lot of time describing them, but makes everything we learn part of the action. And so String, an Elaki that has never fit in well with his own folk, volunteers to aid in the investigation; some suspect his motives are other than what he says.

Lurking in the background is David’s traumatic past. He grew up in a ghetto, the tunnels underground known as Little Saigo. The tunnels were invented originally to house the wealthiest members of society from Earth’s degraded environment; imagine a carefully controlled housing development where there is no fear of skin cancer or other environmental hazards. But humans tend to crave the sun, and when the rich didn’t want to buy in, the project was never completed. Squatters populated the many half-completed nooks and crannies in the enormous subterranean catacombs, and eventually an implant similar to a microchip was developed so that those that lived there could identify one another, achieving a measure of safety from those that came to pillage and wreak chaos among the vulnerable.

David has not lived in Little Saigo for a long time; he has a modest but comfortable home, a wife, and darling daughters. But ultimately, he is forced to return to Little Saigo, home of his worst nightmares, in order to solve the crime.

It’s riveting.

Hightower is brilliant. The Elaki are the most memorable nonhuman characters in literature since Spock, and her female characters defy all possible stereotypes. Her pacing, character development, and capacity to develop setting that we can nearly see and breathe is outstanding. She has won the Shamus and her work has been included in the New York Times Most Notable Books list. She’s been published on four continents, and thanks to Open Road Integrated Media, those of us that missed her the first time around can now read her work digitally. And it’s available for sale now.

Highly recommended!

Flashpoint, by Lynn Hightower*****

Posted on November 7, 2015 by seattlebookmama

“Anybody talk to a doctor?”
“Guy came out of emergency and talked to the brother.”
“Hear what he said?”
“Just that they were very concerned with Mark’s condition, and were doing all they could.”
“Shit. Mark won’t make it then. They’re already hanging the crepe.”

Sonora Blair is one of the most kick-ass female detectives to hit the shelves in a very long time. Lucky me, I read it free, thanks to Net Galley and Open Road Integrated Media. The original publication date was 1995, and so the initial publishers must have dropped the ball big-time when it came to promotion, because I know this is the kind of story that resonates with large numbers of people, especially women. And I am glad to see it being resold by Open Road, because they know how to do the job right.

So back to Sonora. No wait, let’s go back to Hightower first. What a total bad-ass when it comes to setting! I loved seeing her enter the home where her children were asleep, and the explosion of naked Barbie doll parts in her daughter’s room. I loved the moment when her elderly dog had an accident in the living room, and she was so distracted by the hundred other things, personal and professional, all colliding at once, that it was not even the first thing she took care of once she found it.

So we have two interesting threads here. One is the problem. A killer out there has murdered a man by handcuffing him to the steering wheel of a vehicle and setting fire to it…and him. It’s grisly business, but Hightower doesn’t overwork the detail to where it triggers my “ick” button; in other words, although it’s terrible, it is never so terrible that I just don’t want to read it anymore. And the problem just becomes thornier and trickier the longer she works on it. Clues drop here and there, and the stakes go up.

The other thread is Blair’s personal life, and the problems she faces in dealing with home and work. It sounds like a tired old song when I put it that way, but like any really skillful writing, it sounds brand new when the author rubs her own brand of English on it and sends it spinning.

After having read several hundred mystery, crime fiction, police procedural, and thriller novels—okay, if I had starting keeping track sooner, I know it would be well over a thousand—there are a handful of devices that are so frequently used that my eyes auto-roll when I see them utilized. I was watching for them. But Blair never gets tossed into the trunk of anybody’s car; she never gets the phone call saying the killer has her kids; there is never a moment when we realize she has been framed for the killing herself, and has to solve it to save her own butt. I’m not saying a great writer can’t get away with any of those; there are some Grand Masters out there that have done it and before my eyes could make the full roll, they were glued back to the page. But once someone reaches into that worn, soiled bag of tricks, it becomes a lot harder to engage me, and I was delighted that Blair never went there.

Her facility with setting is consistently brilliant throughout the book.

One tiny odd bit: for the first chapter or two, I was convinced that Blair was African-American. When she turned up blonde later, I had to mentally reinvent her. It didn’t take long though, because I was riveted and had to get back to the story.

For fans of outstanding detective fiction, this is a must-read. Order it now for yourself, or as a gift for someone you know will love it.

For the Dignified Dead, by Michael Genelin****

Posted on September 7, 2015 by seattlebookmama

There’s a murderer on the loose, one that has killed across international boundaries. The weapon of choice? An ice pick. Happily, the case is assigned to total bad-ass Commander Jana Matinova, the best new female detective I’ve seen in emerge in crime fiction in decades. Thank you to Net Galley and Brash Books for the DRC. This title will be available for purchase November 3.

Part of what initially attracted me to this novel was the setting. Though Matinova finds herself crossing into various parts of central Europe, she is based in Slovakia, a country not even on my personal radar. By way of apology, I will point out that for most of my life, a giant swath of Europe and Asia was designated as USSR, and the satellite states lined up like faithful guardians around its perimeter included Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, both of which have been carved into different nations since the Stalinist realm crumbled. So I thought I’d learn a little bit about the contemporary contours of central Europe in the most enjoyable way possible—through fiction.

Genelin doesn’t disappoint. Along with Matinova, we have a collection of other cops, some of whom garnered truly fetching descriptions, such as this one: “With his thinning hair and lopsided smile he looked like a harmless, slightly unkempt beagle without its long ears.”

In addition we have the sinister Koba, a master criminal that Matinova considers akin, perhaps, to Holmes’s Moriarty. Koba’s role in Genelin’s story is complex and fascinating.

But most of all, I appreciated the development of Jana Matinova, both for her silver-bullet speed and cleverness, and also for that which is not included. We never hear about her hair, makeup, or her figure; we don’t need to know anything about her love life, and if she experiences any ambivalence about her lack of a domestic life, we don’t hear about it. In fact, Genelin treats his protagonist just as he would a male protagonist.

Now isn’t that a breath of fresh air?

The fifth star, which I would have loved to be able to add to this engaging story, is denied because of problematic passages that popped up often enough to warrant ten different notations in my kindle: “Too wordy! Tighten it up!” It seemed either as if there were two writers, one more capable than the other, co-writing the novel, or as if someone whose mother tongue is not English was struggling to say what needed saying. I noticed this was most frequent during passages of narrative, and less likely to occur during dialogue. Whatever it is, it could benefit greatly from either some rewritten passages or strong editing. But every time I found my eyes jerking through one of these verbose areas in the text, sooner or later we would come out slick as a whistle, and everything would commence to flow again. I don’t think a published text has ever confused me so much in this regard.

That being said, I would cheerfully read other books in this series given the opportunity. Because when push comes to shove, Commander Jana Matinova is a champ!

Pop Goes the Weasel, by M.J. Arlidge***

Posted on September 2, 2015 by seattlebookmama

Pop Goes the Weasel is the second in a detective series featuring Helen Grace. Thank you to Net Galley and Random House-Penguin for the DRC. The title goes up for sale October 6.

Arlidge is an experienced, confident writer. The opening of the book is among the best openers I have seen for quite awhile:

“The fog crept in from the sea, suffocating the city. It descended like an invading army, consuming landmarks, choking out the moonlight, rendering Southampton a strange and unnerving place.”

The tone is thus set for a grisly murder mystery, the perfect mood for an October read.

The premise here is that someone is murdering men that seek the services of prostitutes, and their slayer doesn’t merely kill the men, but eviscerates them without the courtesy of killing them first. Well, this may not be exactly evisceration: they aren’t removing their digestive tracts, but rather their hearts. And while I read that description before requesting this DRC, I should have dwelt on it a moment or two longer, because this particular story really passed my “ick” threshold, and it was my own fault for not being more careful in reading the promotional description.

That said, although it was a bit much for me, it probably won’t be for you, not if you watch a lot of cop shows on television or view a lot of adrenaline-pumping movies that feature violence. That said, I would also steer away anyone who has recently had a death in the family. The descriptions of the cadavers were so explicit that you may find your mind making leaps you didn’t count on.

Grace’s situation is linked to things that happened in Arlidge’s first in the series, and they are referred to often. You may be better off reading these in order. I didn’t read the first, and although I was able to keep up just fine in terms of following plot and character motivation, I felt a little as if I were a guest at someone else’s family dinner. There were so many little undercurrents that referred to Grace’s earlier experiences, as well as those of Charlie, another cop who’d been in the previous story as well, that I felt a bit left out. I also had difficulty, for the first half of the story, keeping Helen and Charlie distinct from one another, and this part I chalk up to the author’s failure to adequately describe each of them. Whether it is the first or tenth in a series, the author has an obligation to provide a clear picture of the protagonist as well as other important characters. That didn’t happen here. Eventually I understood the motivations of each, as well as a good deal of Helen Grace’s internal characteristics, but I never was able to form enough of a mental picture of their appearances to make a mental movie. At times, I felt as if the explicit gore and sex were substitutions for character development. The plot itself was a trifle formulaic.

For those that read the first in the series and enjoyed it, this second in the series is bound to please. It is to those readers that I recommend this mystery.