Book 122-123
Cloudland by Joseph Olshan
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
This one had such potential and it fell flat, too much soap opera not enough mystery. Nothing felt fully developed and yet it was draggy as can be. Catherine Winslow was once an investigative reporter who ‘retired’ for reasons that were barely clear and now she’s doing home help tips, and is doing well with that. She was also an adjunct teacher who had an affair with a twenty-four year old student, Matthew who was half her age and ended terribly. She finds a frozen woman by a fallen tree with seventh day adventist literature in her pocket (and trees have special meaning for that branch of Christianity). This murder victim matches a pattern of killings.
Catherine, with her reporter past, is kept looped into the investigation by Detective Prozzo and the psychiatrist working up a profile, Anthony, someone she already knows. Together they work on the mystery with a truly interesting link to a rare obscure unfinished mystery by Wilkie Collins. There was an interesting cast of suspects from an old friend of Catherine, a knacker/butcher named Hiram and her old boyfriend, Matthew who had attacked her once (when their affair ended). On top of this we have Catherine’s semi-estranged daughter, Breck (they’re trying to work it out).
If they had kept it to the mystery this could have been so interesting. But no, we have Anthony’s life imploding as his wife leaves, Prozzo’s life’s a mess, Catherine claims she wants to fix things up with her daughter but won’t even visit her and her girlfriend (you get the hint she doesn’t quite approve). There is just far too much of the soap opera especially of Catherine and Matthew who’s romantic overtures were creepy (He shows up while she’s out eating back when he was her student, upsetting her and she goes from that to going to bed with him in the span of five minutes because his ‘persistence was charming.’ Nope, it was weird and gave me cold chills.
The ending was very contrived, infuriating and really ruined any good will I might have felt for Catherine. I might have gone one star higher until this ending. Here’s a spoiler for why (so look away).
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Yeah so spoiler. Matthew strangled Catherine when she broke it off two years ago so badly she has a scarred neck. She still meets with him in spite of the protests of her friends and her daughter. She is utterly crappy and judgmental to her daughter through the whole book. In the end she’s like yeah I know he strangled me (and was accused of hurting another girl) but I love him and I’m going back with him. I cannot respect this glorification of an abusive relationship. If this is not a one off (I think it is) I would never read another with Catherine in it.
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Flash and Bones by Kathy Reichs
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
It’s been a while since I’ve picked up a Temperance Brennan book, mostly because I was getting a wee bit tired of her bouncing between Ryan and Charlie (too soap opera for me). When I opened this one, she’s not with either man and her ex-Pete is remarrying and has the audacity to ask her to make nice with his dimwit fiancee, Summer, who’s turned into bridezilla. Tempe is in North Carolina this time and a body has found inside an oil barrel encased in asphalt. It has ties to the nearby Nascar track and a mechanic, Gamble there wants to know if it’s his sister who disappeared with her boyfriend who was connected with a right wing racist militia.
Turns out it was a man in the barrel but she teams up with Detective Slidell to see if there is a connection. It leads back to the track to the head of security, Galimore, who was the detective on the case back then only to end up in jail for taking bribes. Slidell naturally hates him. Then the FBI shows up, steals the body and begins to stonewall but not before they learn the man in the barrel died of ricin poisoning. On top of this, a man responsible for looking into that sort of thing has also disappeared.
Naturally Tempe turns to Galimore to learn more about what happened to the promising young student and her scumbag boyfriend like Gamble wanted. Here’s where things get a bit mushy. It’s like Reichs wanted to go one way with this then thought better of it. Slidell promises to cut Tempe off if she talks to Galimore but he doesn’t. Reichs sets Galimore as sex on a stick and it looks like Tempe was about to jump him (and I would have lost a lot of respect for her and the author, not because of the sex but for enforcing the idea women can’t control themselves around hot men even though we know it’ll cost us professional respect). Luckily that got lost in the shuffle and the mystery becomes the focus again.
It wraps up nicely with some fun twists. I do enjoy this series. I just wish it would avoid the soap opera stuff a little more.
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