Review: Murder on the Cliff

Murder on the Cliff by Jane A. Adams
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Just love this series--Rina Martin is a retired actress; a widow who has opened her home to fellow thespians--a motley crew for sure. There isn't much that escapes Rina's eyes and ears. A young policeman, Mac, has been assigned to her small seaside community. Single, new to the town and reeling from a botched kidnapping in his former assignment, he has become another of her lost souls, although he has not moved into her home. Still, the group has become somewhat like a family to him and he often has dinner there.

This book is a continuation of the first, so there are characters that carry over and the ramifications of the earlier story are still being felt. In this installment, rich families are victims of a kidnapper who demands large sums of money for the return of their children. The families do not report the events to the police and at times the same families are subjected to a second kidnapping. As the book opens, however, one of the kidnapped is shot in the head and dumped overboard into the sea. When the body washes up on shore and is identified this strange multiple kidnapping scenario is revealed. But how does the kidnapper keep the victims from the police and why are they willing to have their children taken multiple times with the resulting huge ransoms paid?

Quite an exciting story and ingenious scams continuing non-stop--that is, until one child is murdered and the police become involved. Fast paced and fascinating with colorful characters. Hope there are more tales involving Rina Martin and her cohorts!



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Review: Murder In School

Murder In School by Bruce Beckham
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Not sure why it took so long to get through this second installment of DI Skelgill. Too much tramping through the moors and private school campus with no real clues as to what is going on. Also, the passages about fishing and Skelgill's methodology in seeking out the big ones and their locations seemed too long and convoluted. Much like the book itself--too many characters and too little clarity to the connections between them and the two murder victims. Felt like lots of wasted time and muddled thinking with the only real action taking place in the last 25 pages. What's the relationship between Skellgill and Jones, anyway?

Will move to the third book, only because I liked the first and hope this one is a fluke of circular, convoluted prose.

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Review: Trespasser

Trespasser by Paul Doiron
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Mike Bowditch is as much a loose cannon as ever in this second installment! Have a feeling the last few pages have a foreshadowing hint of a change that is going to happen in Mike's life but will wait to see. In the meantime, he is still struggling with his father's legacy, his girlfriend's discontent and now the murder of a young woman that he feels he let down by not searching more thoroughly for her when she ran into a deer but wasn't at the collision scene.

Her murder is almost a duplication of one that happened seven years ago. But, the murderer is sitting the the jail in Thomaston so who killed her? This is a real conundrum and not until the last pages is the solution revealed.

I have two problems with this one--did the supposed outdoors people of that island 10 miles out really not know what was going to happen when they brought deer to the island when there was absolutely no natural predator present? Even hunting them, there would have been no way to keep the herd in check. And why kill the doe and her two fawns--if one or both were male--then kill the male.

The other, I know these small towns and live in one in Vermont--everybody knows everybody's family relationships and believe me, when some one is in trouble all the town is reminded about to whom the miscreant is related. Mystery would have been solved much faster if this were a true story.

Still, keeping the fact out of the narrative, sure made for a tricky who dunnit!

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