The Mystery Starts Here

I picked this mystery novel up because of the interesting beginning. A pregnant young mother is found dead, and her 18 month old daughter had been alone in the house with the body for two days, walking around through her mother’s blood, spreading it through the house. Unfortunately the story went down hill from almost immediately.

First of all, I never really liked the main protagonist, Taylor Jackson. She’s six foot tall, gorgeous (of course) and well… darn near perfect! She rarely sleeps, doesn’t eat and, well she’s perfect! Very annoying. The love interest is a profiler with the FBI behavioral unit but is apparently assigned to Nashville??? The main problem I had with this novel was the author’s overwriting. She couldn’t just have Taylor drive from her house to the cop shop, nooooo. She had to tell us which streets she took and why – for about four pages. I started skipping about a third of the way through the book. A one point, Taylor arrived at the scene of a bloody murder, there were cop cars all over the place but….she had to stop and for TWO PAGES give us a description and history lesson on Centennial Park and the Parthenon there! Talk about stopping the forward motion. I almost gave up then but was so close to finishing the book, I decided to plow on. Besides, I had guessed fairly early on whodunit.

Basically there was just too, too much in the book! At one point Taylor says, “Just how many serial killers can the city of Nashville have in one day?” My thoughts exactly. Too many names and situations from past novels about the same protagonist that didn’t make sense. Too many disparate threads that all came together oh so neatly at the end but….they didn’t make sense either. Like most Mira books, this one is too long by at least 50 pages. It would have been greatly improved by some judicious cutting and better editing.

The ending was like some long-running soap opera where the writers had to make everything fit! BUT by far the most annoying aspect of “The Judas Kiss” was that the author left a lot up in the air. Yes, she wants us to buy her next book to find out what happens! I don’t think so. I rolled my eyes and threw this book against the wall – with great force.

When I saw a new Jeffrey Deaver novel sitting on the shelf of the library, I snatched it without bothering to read the blurb. I generally get eight novels at a time and am delighted if I can read two or three. The instant I got home, I started to read, “The Bodies They Left Behind” and it had a great opening chapter! I really got sucked in. Unfortunately, things went down hill fast from there.

A female sheriff’s deputy and another woman who survived the murdurous attack take off into the Wisconsin woods to escape, with two male killers hot on their trail. That hunt was simply incredible beyond words, to the point that it became almost cartoonish. The heroine tries to trick the villains; the villains figure out it’s a trick, and counter her trick with ANOTHER trick; but she anticipates this counter-trick, and counter-counter-tricks, and…… SHEESH! Too often I found myself saying, “HUH?” or “You’ve GOT to be kidding.”

For instance, it’s night, April, thick trees in a state park but…one killer sees cracker crumbs on the ground! In another “I don’t believe that one for an instant” scene one of the baddies observes a smear of blood on a rock! Yeah, right. There were a lot of twists and turns, but most of them were just too unbelievable. Brynn McKenzie, the deputy was especially annoying. Every time she encountered a challenge, she solved the problem because she had taken a class or gone to a seminar or read a book. My eyeballs were rolling around in my head so much I got dizzy.

So, while “The Bodies They Left Behind” is a fast read, there is just too much Deux ex Machina for me. I sure hope Deaver’s next book is better.