Charlene Weir

An interesting story about a woman , Caley James, with three children, an irresponsible ex-husband, and the flu. She's trying to hold it together, but it seems like nothing can go right. Even the furnance goes on the blink. The repairman seems incompetent and has "psycho eyes". That repairmen also ends up dead in the basement. Chief of Police Susan Wren is trying to investigate the crime, but she has so many officers off sick that it is becoming hard to keep it together before she herself succumbs to the flu. She must work with an officer she dislikes, but ends up helping in numerous ways. As Susan investigates, she learns that the victim, Tim Holiday, had only been in town for three months and no one knows much about him. It is clear from the damage to the victim's face that the killer wanted him unrecognizeable, but then Susan discovers that Holiday himself wanted to keep his identity a secret she calls in support from a previous colleague. Just who was Tim Holiday and why was he killed in Caley's basement?

There are a lot of twists and turns in the novel. It's got likeable characters and enough foreshadowing for the reader to worry about what's around the corner on the next page.… (altro)

I've been doing a project to read a mystery by an author new to me from every state in the Union. Since I'd already read lots of [a:Nancy Pickard|49538|Nancy Pickard|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg]'s books, I couldn't "count" [b:The Virgin of Small Plains|180648|The Virgin of Small Plains A Novel of Suspense|Nancy Pickard|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172493157s/180648.jpg|1076272] for my Kansas book. So I chose [a:Charlene Weir|364430|Charlene Weir|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg]'s first Susan Wren novel, and I'll definitely be looking for more.

The book opens with a Kansas police chief investigating -- what? We aren't sure, and then he is murdered. We then learn that he's only been back from his honeymoon for 10 days, and that his new wife is a former San Francisco detective whom he swept off her feet at a police conference. She's already enduring culture shock living in a small city in Kansas (I'd say small town, but it's evidently bigger than Small Plains in Pickard's book). Now her parents want her to come back to San Francisco, her sister-in-law is pressuring her to sell the half of the family farm she's just inherited, and the mayor asks her to be interim police chief -- and find her husband's killer. She plunges into the job and soon finds that she's dealing with a lot of stuff she never saw in SF -- pigs on the loose and giant bulls among them -- but also that greed, drug dealing, and general criminality exist just as much in small towns in Kansas as in big city California. Welcome touches of humor enliven what might otherwise be a too-grim story.

Occasionally in this book, Susan Wren is guilty of actions which some might term "too stupid to live," but her state of grief and a prickly relationship with one of her detectives, in addition to issues with her father, a high-powered attorney, go a long way to explain them. There are great characters in this book, such as Sophie the cat lady and Susan herself. It's a very good first novel, gives a fine picture of the land, economy and people of Kansas, and I look forward to reading more of the series.… (altro)

As usual I really liked this book, the characters are growing and changing, the depiction of small town Kansas rings very true to what I know of small town mid-west and the mystery was pretty good (although I caught the big clue and so actually guessed right, for once!)

So, why did it take me several days to read this one? Well, the subject matter revolves around the Governor's run for President, and the plot line about the backstabbing and infighting involved in the campaign just really bothered me, mostly because I'm so sick of politicians and the way they distort things to fit their agenda rather than doing anything for the people they supposedly represent.

So, I love the mystery, I love the regular characters and I had some serious problems with the actual characters involved in the murders.

I'll keep reading the series because of the regular characters and hope that from now on she avoid politics.… (altro)