Product Details
- Hardcover: 304 pages
- Publisher: Berkley Hardcover (September 6, 2011)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0425243486
- ISBN-13: 978-0425243480
- Review copy provided by the publisher
- Want to purchase a copy of this book? Click here.
- About the book:
- After a candidate for governor is murdered, and his estranged wife is arrested for first-degree homicide, journalist Catherine McLeod receives a call from an anonymous woman claiming she saw the real killer leave the scene of the crime but is afraid to confide in the police. To uncover the truth, Catherine must risk her career-and her life-to find the witness who can identify the candidate's murderer: Detective Ryan Beckman.
- My take on this book:
- David Matthews seems to be a shoe in to become the next governor of Colorado, while he portrays a loving husband with a squeaky clean image that isn't really who he is. Instead he has been carrying on affairs for years and the latest person who he is entangled with is Detective Ryan Beckman, but when he tries to break it off with her, she won't give up and murders him. As luck would have it she is assigned as the chief detective in the murder case and decides that she will frame David's wife. There is only one problem with her plan, someone saw her commit the crime, and they have made an anonymous call to Catherine McLeod an investigative reporter who had been doggedly covering Matthews political campaign and now the murder. Will the detective be able to get away with murder, or will Catherine be able to expose a crooked cop before the crooked cop silences her?
- What an interesting plot, and the thing that made it totally different was the fact that I knew from the beginning who the killer was but still it was a real page turner as we watched Detective Beckman slowly start to crack under the pressure of trying to cover her tracks. I thought the character of Catherine McLeod was quite believable, its easy to see that she struggles with what happened to her in the past, and the relationship that she is slowly building with Nick Bustamante seems quite promising. I also love that her dog Rex is often mentioned in the story.
- While this is the second book in the Catherine McLeod Mystery series it can easily be read as a stand alone work. I haven't read the first book and easily followed this story, although I have already purchased the first book in the series titled "Blood Memory," because this author's writing style has totally hooked me and makes me want to read more of her work! If your a fan of fast paced thrillers that will keep you intrigued until the final page then your going to love this one!
About the author:
Margaret Coel is the New York Timesbest-selling author of the acclaimedWind River mystery series set among the Arapahos on Wyoming'sWind River Reservation and featuring Jesuit priest Father John O'Malley and Arapaho attorney Vicky Holden. The latest is The Spider's Web (Sept. 2010).The novels have received wide recognition. They have been on the bestseller lists of numerous newspapers, including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News. Five novels have received the Colorado Book Award. THE SPIRIT WOMAN received the Willa Cather Award for Best Novel of the West and was a finalist for the Western Writers of America's Spur Award for Best Novel.
She is a native Coloradan who hails from a pioneer Colorado family. The West — the mountains, plains, and vast spaces — are in her bones, she says. She moved out of Colorado on two occasions — to attend Marquette University and to spend a couple of years in Alaska. Both times she couldn't wait to get back.
Along with the Wind River mystery series, Margaret Coel is the author of five non-fiction books (two of which are featured on this site), including the award-winning Chief Left Hand, published by the University of Oklahoma Press. This biography of an Arapaho chief and history of the Arapahos in Colorado has never gone out of print. The Colorado Historical Society has included both Chief Left Hand and Margaret's memoir-history of railroading in Colorado, Goin' Railroading (which she wrote with her father, Samuel F. Speas) among the best 100 books on Colorado history.
Her articles on the West have appeared in the New York Times, theChristian Science Monitor, American Heritage of Invention & Technology,Creativity! and many other publications. Speaking engagements on the people and places she loves best have taken her around the country and as far away as Australia. She visits the Wind River Reservation every year, "just to catch up with my Arapaho friends."
She writes in a small study in her home on a hillside in Boulder. The window frames a view of the Rocky Mountains and the almost-always blue sky. A herd of deer are usually grazing just outside, and one summer a couple of years ago, a mountain lion made its home closeby.
"Every day,"she says, "I drink in the West."
Margaret is part of a Native American Author Roundtable on Authors on the Web.
rating 5/5
Sounds like a good book! I'm not much of a mystery reader but many of the authors on She Writes write mysteries, so I'm reading more lately! Thanks for the review.
ReplyDeletehttp://thinkinginmyheadma.blogspot.com
I'm so glad you enjoyed the book! It sounds like a great mystery! Thanks for being part of the tour!
ReplyDeleteJennifer
I like the idea that you knew from the beginning who the killer was, and yet the book still managed to keep up a level of tension that kept you reading.
ReplyDelete