A bestselling track record and some hot sex scenarios can't mask the fact that Rosenberg's latest legal-action thriller is a clunker. When her highway patrolman husband, Hank, disappeared, probation officer Ann Carlisle came apart at the seams. Now, four years later, her 12-year-old son, David, has nightmares, wets his bed, and is eating himself into a fat slug. But Ann is beginning to get her life back. She's dating rugged, ostentatiously wealthy assistant DA Glen Hopkins, whose mama is a powerhouse judge, and though David hates him, the sex is great; they even do it in the stairwell of the courthouse. Then Ann is shot outside the courthouse, and again her world turns upside down. Ann's probationer Jimmy Sawyer, a drug dealer who saved her life, is charged with the crime and immediately smears Ann, saying they had an affair that went sour. Ann is getting harassing phone calls from a man who sounds like Hank, and she is forced to remember that her marriage was less than idyllic. Hank liked to smack her around—but did he shoot her? Ann fears she'll antagonize Glen because she's uncovered evidence that may free a rapist he's locked up, and Tommy Reed, a macho Keystone-like cop, smothers her with concern. Like assistant DA Lily Forrester of Mitigating Circumstances (1993), who kills the man she thinks raped her and her daughter, Ann is a victim who tries to go on the offensive. But her actions are obscured by her girlish, namby-pamby ways and her deference to the men she loves. Rosenberg is a former probation officer whose obnoxious promo material tells us she was raped in college and therefore knows how victims feel. She offers a glimpse into a probation officer's gritty day-to-day activities, but it's not very interesting. Cartoon characters, psychobabble, and a helpless heroine who's oblivious to the culprit right under her nose. Skip the book and wait to rent the movie on a very slow weekend. (Literary Guild main selection; author tour)
Pub Date: Aug. 8, 1994
ISBN: 0-525-93853-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1994
Filled with surprising twists and turns, this whodunit in a sullen town is a page-turner.
A young woman’s body is found smoldering in the fire pits of Campbell’s Run, Pennsylvania, and small-town police chief Dove Carnahan is on the case.
O’Dell (One of Us, 2014, etc.) returns with a captivating mystery. Who hated Camio Truly enough to not only bash her head in with a blunt object, but also ditch her body in a fiery grave? As Dove investigates, she’s assisted by Nolan, a gruff detective with the State Criminal Investigations Division and her sometime lover. Practically nobody lives in Campbell’s Run anymore, not since a sinkhole (which had been lurking underground after a mine fire) opened, sucking most of the town into its depths. Since then, Campbell’s Run has declined, as people with the means moved away to nearby Buchanan, so whoever dumped Camio’s body there must be a local. Even before Camio’s murder, the Truly family had had more than its share of troubles, including incarcerated sons and deaths by mayhem, but Dove is shocked at the apathy shown by Camio’s mother, the obese, television-addicted Shawna. Camio’s sister, Jessyca, a single mother, shows far more concern, although she makes little effort to hide her dislike of her younger, more ambitious sister. Yet under the thumb of matriarch Miranda Truly, Camio’s family clams up. Solving the case is further complicated now that Lucky Dombosky has been released from jail after serving 35 years for murdering Dove’s mother. Lucky claims Dove and her sister, Neely, framed him. Meanwhile Dove’s brother, Champ, has shown up, after his own long absence, with a precocious son in tow. O’Dell spins a fine tale, ratcheting up tension with every turn of the screw in Dove’s life and every downward spiral in the Truly family history.
Filled with surprising twists and turns, this whodunit in a sullen town is a page-turner.Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4767-5595-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
Not as tightly clued as a Christie original, this initial First Edition entry still gives readers what they came for.
A curator of a collection of rare mysteries solves a puzzle of her own.
A degree in 19th-century literature doesn’t open many doors, Hayley Burke discovers, and those that do open seldom lead to treasure troves. So when her stint as assistant to the assistant curator of the Jane Austen Centre in Bath doesn’t quite cover expenses, Hayley thinks herself lucky to be offered the position of curator of The First Edition Society. Founded by the late Lady Georgiana Fowling as a repository for her vast collection of mystery novels, the society hasn’t quite decided whether it’s a library, a social club, or an educational institution. What it clearly is is Hayley's home, since the job offers both Hayley and the society’s secretary, Glynis Woolgar, apartments in Middlebank House, the spacious mansion that houses the late Lady Fowling’s collection. In an effort to expand the society’s profile, Hayley also opens Middlebank House to the weekly meetings of a local writers’ group that specializes in mystery fan fiction. But the morning after a particularly contentious session pitting writers of Agatha Christie vampire mashups against creators of Agatha Christie zombie pastiches, the corpse of Tristram Cummins is discovered in the library. Now Hayley’s job is on the line, as the tabloids move in and the board of directors suddenly finds the society’s profile a little too high. Even worse, Charles Henry Dill, Lady Fowling’s rapacious nephew, discovers that Hayley hasn’t read most of the authors featured in his aunt’s collection. Alarmed, Hayley gets down to work, and only a few novels later, Wingate (Midsummer Mayhem, 2019, etc.) shows her channeling Miss Marple accurately enough to give the police a run for their money in unmasking a killer.
Not as tightly clued as a Christie original, this initial First Edition entry still gives readers what they came for.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0410-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
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