Book 2, in the Jack Daniels Mysteries
No denying J.A. Konrath produces gruesome material, even if he may say otherwise in his introduction. This second installment is a mystery with a creepy take and a view on the dark side of funeral homes. Relying on subtlety and imagination this latest concerns a mysterious killer who murders women to suppress his recurring headaches and hatches plans to pin the murders on a Chicago cop.
This sequel has a great story line and starts during a sweltering Chicago summer, a pair of arms is discovered at the morgue and the rest of the body is missing… this little problem brings Jack and her partner Herb on the scene to investigate.
It is pleasantly nice to see the recurring characters first introduced in “Whiskey Sour” returning in tip-top shape even if we find them in the midst of personal struggles this time. It is fun to follow Jack as each crime scene seems to be connected to her in some way….I found the plot line quite suspenseful even if we know fairly early the identity of the killer but what make this deferent is not the who did it but the uncertainty of how or when he will strike again. This quick read has a lot of action and gratuitous gore and managed to have kept my attention till the last page. Although, it may be the standard style found in most thriller of this genre I nevertheless like the wits and the snappy dialogue that peppered the pages. Mr. Friskers’ antics give us some really good laughs along the way I couldn't help but to giggle….Quite entertaining, I am looking forward to the sequel.
Set in Cambridge, Salem and Marblehead, Massachusetts this unique story told with a new England accent flashes back and forth between two time periods: during the Salem witch trials in the late 1600’s and the summer of 1991. This book is definitely a work of fantasy.
The general outline follows several sets of mothers and daughters, their relationships and how they differ. At the heart is the witch hunt where the good folks of Salem thought they were hunting real witches that were putting the entire community in actual danger through malicious magic.
The protagonist is Connie Goodwin a Harvard student working on her PhD, her dissertation topic brings her on a quest to find an old tome, a book of witchcraft. While cleaning her deceased grandmother’s house Connie discovers a key in an old family Bible and the name of Deliverance Dane the author of a book of remedies and spell….hence history comes to life where many scenes cite historical figures involved in the Salem witch trials and vividly portrayed the women accused of practicing witchcraft and what they went through. We also have a romantic sub-plot and lots of supernatural phenomena…… lots of hocus-pocus, lots of abracadabra, lots of smoke and mirrors and puff inevitably visions…. Really?
This book may captivate some minds but definitely will not please everyone. Some may say it is richly written and that the author has immense descriptive abilities, surely true but it missed the target in many ways. Reading this tale felt like molasses: thick, too slow to come and left a terrible after taste (boring and beyond silliness). I was expecting more depth and historical data but I found a totally uninteresting version of one of the most notorious cases of mass hysteria in the early modern period.
Even the characters were under developed, the protagonist for example was simply too dumb for a PhD student in Colonial History, her ignorance was mind boggling. This book left me totally flat and I am surprised I haven’t ditched it before the ending… yes I made it to the last page this was the best part of the whole experience….glad it ended and I could move on. This is the way I see it….
Book 7, in the Sebastian St.Cyr Mytery series
This is my first experience reading this author, although I did so with the 7th installment I never felt lost or that I had missed anything of importance. I molded right into the story and enjoyed the mystery at its fullest. The series is set in Regency England at the beginning of 1800’s and features Sebastian St. Cyr, an aristocratic sleuth, now Viscount Devlin.
The 7th book brings Devlin and his new bride, Hero Jarvis, to put their honeymoon on hold to investigate to the best of their own abilities the mystery behind the death of Hero’s friend, Gabrielle Tennyson, whose body was found floating in a boat in Camlet Moat. We follow them as they search Inns and many grimy black alleys, meet panoply of individuals and in rural London how they dealt with Celtic paganism so revered by most.
This is a fast moving story with many red-herrings. The plot is a strong one and offers intriguing characters. There are more layers added when Sebastian and Hero struggle to unmask the true murderer, one among a mass of suspects. To stitch everything together are political intrigues, family secrets and Napoleonic plots, some are facts and some fiction. This is a well written story in tone and places with numerous dialogues and a little romance to please the reader. I like Sebastian he is definitely not the brightest detective around in fact quite clumsy but he is fun to follow. As for the other characters they are so numerous I easily lost track of some.
Although I did enjoy this book I question if it is worth back reading the installments I skipped or simply continue from here……
