Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Book Description from Amazon.com
“Eighteen year old Kath Branch disappeared from St. James, Illinois in 1975.
That same night, local sandwich shop owner Billy Carlson was gunned down and dumped in the St. James River.
This cold case is personal for prosecutor Meredith Carlson. Billy was her husband’s father.
Convinced she’s solved the case, Meredith lures the now legendary rock star back to her hometown for the first time since she left thirty-five years ago.
Meredith has no idea she’s about to unearth shocking secrets about herself, her husband, and her family.”
Review
1 out of 5 stars
Right out of the box let me clearly state that this is just my own personal opinion and yes I have seen several reviews of this story where it was highly rated. Unfortunately for me, I hated this story and it had very little to do with the actual writing. There are a variety of characters with various subplots that all intersect with the major underlying mystery of who killed Billy Carlson.
The problem for me as a reader was that I hated the characters. The majority of them are self-centered and self-absorbed.
Kath Branch is the stereotypical music personality who cheats on her partner and sleeps around while on the road. Meredith Carlson wants her 15 minutes of fame by solving Billy’s murder even if that means steam rolling her husband’s wishes. Meredith is convinced the killer is Kathy Branch and will do whatever it takes to prove that. Ellen Walker isn’t nearly as self-absorbed but she is also not a sympathetic character. If the opportunity arises for a fling with Kathy, she’s taking it and has informed her husband that she’s going to do just that. What the heck, he owes her a free pass since he’s cheated on her in the past.
I just hated them, all of them. It got to the point where I couldn’t stand reading about them. In fact, I abandoned this book several times. The only thing that kept bringing me back to finish reading it was that I committed to reading the entire story, but it was hard.
Normally such a complex plot with all the inter-related storylines would keep me intrigued but by the time I hit the 50% mark I’d lost all interest in who actually killed Billy Carlson and never really got interested in the mystery again. My only goal was to just finish the thing. Finally there was a turning point in the story where I actually started to enjoy the writing, so much so that I made a note. It was at the 93% complete mark.
I don’t really want to discourage people from reading this story, but it turned out to not be my cup of tea. Maybe because if I knew of these people in real life I would not want anything to do with their drama and would be sorely tempted to smack them upside the head.
Having said all of this, despite hating this particular story, I would read something else written by Lynn Kear another try because the writing itself was ok, I just didn’t like the plot/characters of this particular one.
