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Monday, May 30, 2011

Negative Image by Vicki Delany

 I read Scare the Light Away by Delany a while back and enjoyed it.  Negative Image  is, however, part of a crime/mystery series featuring Molly Smith, and it is evidently a popular and well-loved series.

Here is the review from Booklist:

A murder turns personal for Sergeant John Winters, Constable Molly Smith’s boss on the Trafalgar, British Columbia, police force. It turns out that the victim, a has-been fashion photographer, has a decades-old connection to Winters’ wife, Eliza, a former model. Winters, his trust in his wife shaken, is taken off the case as Eliza becomes a suspect, ahead of both the victim’s young and scarcely grief-striken widow and his ambitious assistant. Working with Winters on a series of home burglaries, Smith suffers the tensions of being a woman in a man’s world; meanwhile, she deals with her father’s health problems, her love for Mounty Adam Tocek, and the presence of a stalker, parolee Charlie Bassing, who blames Smith for all his problems. An unusual protagonist for a crime series, Molly Smith is rarely the primary character when it comes to breaking cases (at least not through four outings), but her life outside work is given full sway. And yet, it is Molly who elevates this series from standard procedural fare into something quite memorable.
 Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for this novel.  That happens sometimes.   I read it a couple of weeks ago, but honestly, had to look at the review to remember what it was about.
 
Fiction.  Crime/mystery.  2010.  250 pages.

3 comments:

  1. It does happen like that sometimes, making an actual review very difficult. And then, too, I always look back and wish I had just quit on the thing. Books that are just interesting enough to keep you reading are usually the most disappointing ones out there.

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  2. I liked this one more than you, Jenclair, but I've read all the books in the series. I think this is a series that definitely gets you involved with the characters in the beginning and that is helpful. Probably best read in order. However, I also know that not every series is for everyone.

    I do like Vicki Delany's stand alone books. I read those first and that is what caused me to pick up the first in the Molly Smith series, IN THE SHADOW OF THE GLACIER.

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  3. Sam - I've been reading like a maniac lately. Which is probably why I couldn't remember so much about it. Picking up another book as soon as you finish one can sometimes be a bit much.

    I've had several lately that I shouldn't have finished. This one didn't fall into that category, though.

    Kay - Sometimes it really is best to start at the beginning. I try to do that, but with library books, I just pick up what is available, and they don't always have a complete series.

    I'll look for In the Shadow of the Glacier. I liked the stand alone I read.

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