The Mystery Starts Here

“Innocent Monster” is the sixth novel in the Moe Prager series and, while I enjoyed the book, I wish I would have started, if not at the beginning, at lease a few books earlier in the series. Moe’s wife Katy, the mother of his estranged daughter, Sarah, was murdered and it was somehow his fault. Colemen refers to the murder endlessly, as well as a failed second marriage and quite frankly, it got in the way of the plot of “Innocent Monster.” Every time Colemen brought up either subject it was back story and you know what back story does. Stop the reader dead in her tracks.

Okay – onward. “Innocent Monster” is the story of Sashi Bluntstone, an eleven-year-old art prodigy and daughter of Sarah’s childhood friend, who has been kidnapped. Three weeks into the investigation and the cops have gotten nowhere and the parents have gotten desperate and everyone believes Sashi is dead. In their desperation they come to Moe Prager for help. Moe is an ex-cop, an ex-P.I. and, with his older brother, the owner of several upscale wine shops around Manhattan with cutesy names like, “Red, White and Vine.”

Moe start sniffing around, gets the reports from the police and is as baffled as everyone else as to what could have happened to the little girl. Many art critics have dismissed Sashi’s artwork as dribbles from a child, others think she’s a genus and everyone knows, if Sashi is dead, her price of her work will go through the roof. Moe starts interviewing Sashi’s detractors, desperate for a lead. The descriptions of some of the characters are priceless. Along the way, Moe meets a woman very casually and starts falling in love with her – then she disappears, too.

About two-thirds of the way into the book, it the police discover one of the suspects has killed himself and….left photos of Sashi’s body. Will her poor parents ever find closure? Of course we know right then and there, this is too neat. Moe is drinking a bit too much and conveniently “remembers” things while sleeping…or passed out. In the end, Moe does find the bad guy, but it would have been darn hard for the reader to figure it out. Also, the ending left a lot of questions. I won’t spoil the story if you want to read the book. I did enjoy most of it but….skipped a LOT of the back story.

Want to read a fun, humorous mystery? Buy a copy of my humorous mystery, FINDER, available at: www.wildchildpublishing.com. They mystery is cleaver, I’ll be you won’t figure it out and….there are a lot of laughs along the way.

I’ve read all of Kathy Reich’s books and have to say, they’ve gotten worse, instead of better. One of the problems I’ve always had with her novels is that she puts in too much detail. Yes, I like the fact that her heroine is an anthropologist, and I enjoy it when Tempe Brennan solves crimes by studying bones but – we really do not need every little detail? It’s like the man who, when you ask him the time, he tells you how to make the watch. All the detail STOPS the forward movement of the text and, that’s not a good thing.

“Spider Bones” starts in Canada when a body is discovered. Don’t all the best mysteries start like that? The man accidentally downed himself during a session of auto erotic stimulation. Then comes the kicker. The corpse is identified as John Lowery, but Lowery died in Viet Nam in 1968! So, who is this? Tempe starts following clues and goes from Canada, to North Carolina and winds up in Hawaii with JPAC, the agency tasked with identifying bones from men and woman from all wars and conflicts starting with WWII.  Then things really get muddled. There are potentially four different men who COULD be in that grave in South Carolina. Tempe follows clues, and pontificates. There are so many military acronyms here your eyes will begin to glaze over. On top of that, the various bones are referred to be numbers and I never could keep them straight.

One of my main beefs with Reichs is that Tempe knows EVERYTHING! Mention a snail on the side walk and voila!, Tempe remembers an article she read about Hawaiian snails and goes on to tell the reader all about them. To me it’s a lot of deux ex machina. Reichs obviously does a lot of research and she’s going to by God get it all in the book! TOO MUCH, KATHY! STOP! There’s a second, parallel story line about parts of  bodies found in a bay that had been chewed up by sharks, a drug connection and … I’m really not sure! This book was SO confusing it was really hard to follow.

And of course there is the on-again, off-again romance between Ryan and Tempe. This time both adults bring their daughters to Hawaii and of course they don’t get along. I guess I must have missed something somewhere along the line because Lily, Ryan’s daughter is referred to several times as being black. Did I miss something? I thought she was blonde? Well, never mind. At this point I doubt I’ll waste any more time on the muddled prose of Reichs.

If you want to read a good, no GREAT novel, get a copy of MIND ECHOES! MIND ECHOES is the story of a house call veterinarian who communicates with animals telepathically to help a police detective solve crimes. It’s ON SALE for the entire month of February as a featured book at: www.whiskeycreekpress.com for ONLY $1.99! Why? Because it’a finalist in the 2011 EPIC contest. Pick up a copy today – I promise it’s not the least bit confusing, just fun and entertaining.