#1 Zoe Hayes, art therapist; amateur sleuth, dark cosy. A woman drifting through life puts herself and her daughter in jeopardy when nannies start disappearing and body parts begin to turn up in her neighborhood. I was afraid this was a mommy-track "cute!!!" mystery, centered around precious kids and their plush lifestyles and schedules, something I’m not fond of. But although the first hundred pages are almost excruciatingly slow, they aren't bad, and by page 150 things really get moving and this becomes an emotionally dark, fast-paced thriller ride that I thoroughly enjoyed, having “bought into” Zoe’s “take” on life and her situation. Poor pacing and the inability to pare down to essentials often occurs in first books; this would have benefitted greatly from a cutting of about a third (~100 pages) IMO. While this is not her first book it is her first fiction, and thus might be said to be suffering from First Book-itis. I’ll gladly give her another try, though, as overall it was entertaining, well-plotted, and only just a wee bit incredible in its thrillerish denouement. It’ll be interesting to see if the author can surmount the infamous Cabot Cove Syndrome (“how do I *believably* get my amateur protag involved in multiple murder cases?”) that cripples many otherwise entertaining series. .On the surface I’d ought to have hated this, and I liked it rather a lot. Young, pretty Mom type with cute smart kid, boyfriend is cop fercrissakes, ought to have been too precious for words! But noxious as those components can sometimes be, the book was saved when the tone went dark in the middle and the plotting became very strong. She shows promise.
This was a rather odd mystery book in many ways and it took me awhile to get into it. The main character, an art therapist who works at a mental institution is narrating the story. She lives in a not so nice neighbourhood with her adopted daughter and local nannies are disappearing from the area with increasing frequency. When her daughter finds a bloody finger out in the snow it all moves very close to home. She likes the new detective Nick, but can she trust him? Charlie says there is evil around and he wants to protect her. Can she believe him? Victor never leaves his house - what's up with that? And then there's her ex-husband Michael with his incessant demands and Phillip Woods, another strange fellow. Could life be any weirder? Clearly it could and it happens in this story.For the most part, I didn't really feel I had a deep understanding of all the characters. Did it have a happy ending - well- sort of. 3.5 stars
Do You like book The Nanny Murders (2006)?
Another quickie thriller by an author I hadn't heard of. I love exploring new authors as I am new to their methodologies and twists and turns occur when least expected. This story deals with a single mother of a 5 year old adopted girl, who gets blown into a whirlwind investigation of disappearing nannies in the neighbourhood, where all neighbours, especially males are suspects. She also is attracted to the handsome detective who is leading the case, and who has a few dark secrets of his own. The story escalates to the final climax when, as is usual with most thrillers, the pace and interest unravels and we are left with a good book at the start which sustained midway, but failed a bit towards the end.Still, overall a nice thriller to while away time.
—Ahtims
