Thanks again to Carl Brookins for sharing his reviews. Blogger was not cooperating earlier today when I tried to post this. Sigh.....
by
Ellen Hart
ISBN:
978-1250001863
A
Minotaur
hardcover and Kindle
2012
release
So
readers know,
the author and I are friends, often travel together as the
Minnesota Crime Wave
and occasionally consult about writing crime fiction. I believe I
retain my
critical abilities at a sufficient level to fairly judge her
novels as well as
those of other author-friends and acquaintances. This is an
interesting novel
from several directions.
As
is the case
with nearly all Hart’s novels, this one is smoothly and carefully
written. The
characters are alive, interesting and, at least in the case of
three in this
novel, people I think readers will continue to want to follow. Two
of them are
old friends, Jane Lawless and her alter ego, Cordelia Thorne. The
third is
Jane’s new love interest, Avi. I hope we’ll see more of her in the
future.
The
setting for
this story is a new one for Jane who has acquired her Private
Investigator’s
license and is now discovering that owning restaurants and being a
PI requires
even more than two full lives. It will be interesting to see how
her creator handles
this new development in Jane’s life. I particularly liked the
running theme in
which Jane has to deal with restaurant personnel who don’t operate
quite the the
way she did.
The
main setting
is a strip club in central Minneapolis called Gaudy Lights. The
many absorbing
scenes in the club are potent, rich with meanings and
possibilities. They amply
demonstrate the skills of the author, as do her character
sketches. The major plot
deals with murder, murder with roots reaching back fifteen or
twenty years to
terrible acts. Yet the initial murder which opens the book serves
mainly to
bring Jane into the case, since the victim is related to her
mentor and hospitalized
PI partner, AJ Nolan.
That killing and the subsequent fallout are, in my view, plenty strong enough to carry the book. Other material, particularly some that involving a relatively minor character, a pilot, I found to be distracting and unnecessary.
The novel is well-written and moves almost entirely at an appropriate pace. I really enjoyed the book, although in my view it is not as strong as The Lost Women of Lost Lake. However, I have no hesitation in recommending Rest For the Wicked to the widest possible audience for crime fiction.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Carl Brookins www.carlbrookins.com BLOG: http://agora2.blogspot.com -BOOKS: Case of the Great Train Robbery, Reunion, Red Sky
That killing and the subsequent fallout are, in my view, plenty strong enough to carry the book. Other material, particularly some that involving a relatively minor character, a pilot, I found to be distracting and unnecessary.
The novel is well-written and moves almost entirely at an appropriate pace. I really enjoyed the book, although in my view it is not as strong as The Lost Women of Lost Lake. However, I have no hesitation in recommending Rest For the Wicked to the widest possible audience for crime fiction.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Carl Brookins www.carlbrookins.com BLOG: http://agora2.blogspot.com -BOOKS: Case of the Great Train Robbery, Reunion, Red Sky
2 comments:
This sounds like a terrific story, and I LOVE the title.
I thought the title was quite clever, too. Carl always has such good reviews I'm always tempted. (Smile)
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