The Mystery Starts Here

I picked up this book at the library mainly because it was about a woman who helps to rescue Golden retrievers. The story held my interest, but was hard to read in part because, unfortunately, too many dogs are abused in puppy mills and Koontz goes into detail about them, yuck. At one point, when he talked about putting a dog to sleep, I wept. I’ve had to do it too often. There was a long thread about the abuse of a disabled child which was stomach turning - very tough. Well, Koontz IS a horror writer.

I enjoyed "Darkest Evening" for the most part. It was interesting to see how Koontz wove all the disparate threads together towards the end. However, the ending didn’t work for me - or for many people who reviewed the book on amazon.com. It seemed like Koontz got to a certain point, looked at his watch and said, "Boogers, I’ve got to wrap this up!", and he did.

There’s a big element of woo-woo in this book, so be prepared. In spite of the dark element of this novel, there are some very funny, laugh-out-loud lines in the book. I loved reading about the Goldens even though I’m a Labrador lover. I’ve lived with dogs long enough to know that they each have their own unique personalities.

A lot of Koontz’ books are very long - partly I think because he just LOVES to describe! He’s good at it but often it’s just too much - it makes my teeth hurt. This book had lots of lush description, sometime so much that I got lost and had to go back to see what was happening to the people! Unlike some of his longer tomes this one is a more normal length at 354 pages. All in all I guess I’d have to say I didn’t love it and I didn’t hate it but I finished the book and that’s something I don’t always do!

I went to the library yesterday to get a few books to read, eight actually. Yes, I’m an optimist. I found a great paperback, "The Remains of the Dead, A Ghost Busters Mystery " by Wendy Roberts and wonder of wonders, it’s the first in a series! Usually I find a good book but it’s the middle of the series and I never can find out why Ophelia and Chad broke up or what happened to Doc Harley’s chicken and, of course, I can NEVER find the first book in the series so it all makes sense!

But I digress. The protagonist of "Remains" is Sadie Novak and she owns and runs, "Scene-to-Clean," in Seattle. Yes, she cleans up crime scenes, really, really terrible crime scenes. Believe or not, this is a humorous mystery. The beginning of this book finds Sadie and her employee, Zack, a disgraced former police officer, cleaning the scene of a murder-suicide. As if that weren’t interesting enough - Sadie sees dead people. Never suicides, only murder victims. When she started her business it used to freak her out, but now she finds satisfaction in helping them to move to the other side. Most of them don’t know they’re dead until she tells them.

When Sadie encounters the murder victim at this scene, she realizes that something is not right and decides to investigate on her own. She meets an attractive new man, visits a psychic and tries to stop her younger sister’s marriage. There are many plot twists and lots of description of the crime scenes Sadie and Zack clean up, so if you’re squeamish, this might not be the book for you. But if you are squeamish - what the heck are you doing reading mysteries?

I can only see good things coming for Sadie, Zack and Scene-2-Clean and know this will be a successful series. Do look for this book at your local bookstore or library or get it on amazon. It’s a winner.

The Remains of the Dead, by Wendy Roberts, Obsidian Press, 2007