The Mystery Starts Here

After a long layoff and months of struggling, Alice Humphries finally lands her dream job managing a new art gallery in Manhattan’s trendy Meat Packing District. According to Drew Campbell, the man who hires her, the gallery is the project of a wealthy, anonymous man who’s starting the project for his protégé/lover.

All of Alice’s friend think the opportunity is too good to be true, and in the back of her mind, Alice knows too knows something is off about the job. But she’s struggled for years to come out of the shadow of her famous director father, and she sees this as her chance to make good.

Everything is perfect until the morning Alice arrives at work to find the walls of the gallery stripped bare of everything but the dead body of Drew Campbell resting in a pool of blood in the middle of the floor. Suddenly Alice finds her dream job is gone, she’s the center of a police investigation and evidence is mounting against her.

This is an extremely interesting story that takes some time to unfold. There are several storylines that seem to have no connection but later begin to intersect. The characters are layered and it isn’t clear who can be trusted even to the end. Many are ethically challenged without any redeeming qualities but there are enough who are to keep you invested in the outcome. It’s a well-written story that kept my mind challenged throughout.

I admit I had a hard time getting into Long Gone because of the multiple story lines. I almost gave up put knew the disparate threads would come together eventually and they did. I was blow away at the intricate plotting and resolution. In my opinion, one of the treads was unnecessary and could easily have been dropped but it didn’t detract from the story.

Too many children of famous authors have been writing and getting their novels published – and most are not good. Fortunately Alafair Burke, daughter of writer James Lee Burke, can write and write well. I’ve read both her Ellie Hatcher and Samantha Kincaid series and enjoyed them both. That said I’m glad Ms. Burke has decided to break out with a standalone novel. Too many series become stale and repetitious after a few books. I look forward to reading her next book.

I got to within 30 pages of the end of “Never Fear” and just quit. I was SO disgusted, I couldn’t force myself to finish. I’m STILL not entirely sure what the damn book was about.

First of all, the protagonist, Alex Dillieo is suppose to be a woman, but I didn’t believe it for a minute. Some men can write good women characters, some can’t – Frost can’t.  I never believed she was female – and I can’t really point to any one reason why. Just a feeling. And, the investigation took place over the course of, I think, four days but….Alex never changed clothes, showered or apparently ate! EEEUUUU. There were a couple of contrived love scenes between Alex and her partner but they were very awkward and unbelievable.

Speaking of her partner, his name was Harrington. One of the other main characters name was…Hazard. I kept getting them mixed up! Why Frost had two main characters with such similar names, I have no idea but it was not a good idea. That’s a newby mistake and should NEVER have come out in a published novel. Where on earth was the editor?????

Okay so the plot. The author keeps remarking on things that apparently happened in a previous book. I hate that! I haven’t read the book (and certainly won’t now) so it slowed the progress of the novel. Alex is contacted because a man who said he’s her brother was killed, or committed suicide, but Alex doesn’t have a brother. Alex, a cop with Pasadena PD, goes off to investigate. I’d love to give you a synopsis of the plot but I honestly can’t. It was so damn convoluted, I simply could not follow what was happening. It had something to do with a serial killer from 18 years previous who may…or may not have been Alex father. There were coincidences all over the place – another newby mistake and a couple of times my eyeballs were rolling around in my head so fast I stopped reading and said out loud “OH come on!!!” Yeah, that bad.

So, if you feel you have to read “Never Fear” I’d suggest you get it from the library. And if you do – would you please explain it to me? I don’t have a clue.

Want to read a GOOD dark mystery? Pick up a copy of my mystery, The Worst Evil, available at: www.whiskeycreekpress.com