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Avg. Rating: 3.5
Finally... an ending that is not abrupt
I love Mary Jane Clark and her first 3 books were awesome but the last 2 while quick reads, I found a bit disappointing because the endings were too abrupt. This time, however, she did not miss. The story of course focuses on KEY News and its Medical Correspondent/Producer Anabelle Murphy. The story deals with the issue of anthrax which while is a very serious issue was dealt with in a way that did not make for a disturbing read. The plot starts of with a KEY employee who while delivering information on anthrax, surprises the world and the KEY employees by showing a tube of anthrax on live TV. Now the FBI is involved in trying to get John Lee, MD to reveal who gave him the anthrax. Meanwhile, KEY employees and others are starting to die due to the anthrax poisoning. As the FBI continue to delve into the source of the anthrax, a lab report comes back stating that the tube that Dr. John Lee used on the show was actually a tube of powdered sugar. This leads to the interesting question of who has the tube of anthrax and why are people being killed. The killer actually has targeted Anabelle who not only has to find out who killed her ex-boyfriend, KEY employee Jerome Henning but who also has to deal with a husband who is dealing with 9/11 post traumatic disorder. I gave this book a 5 because Mary Jane Clark did a fine job of dealing with difficult issues and when the killer is finally revealed, you will be surprised at to who it is and at least you will have a reason as to why the killer was motivated to kill.
As always with MJC, you get a quick read with multiple suspects to play around with and guess who is the real villain.
Not what I expected
I felt a bit misled with this book. The back cover and inside blurb focused on a lockdown situation, which sounded like a great suspense situation and I was looking forward to reading the book. Then, absolutely nothing happens for the first 300 pages! Basically nothing much at all, just lots of short chapters, and tons of characters, none of which we really get to know well enough to enjoy their company or care about. Then it's in the last 50 pages of the book that we finally get to the lockdown situation, and it's just a letdown, no big drama whatsoever, and the story just fizzled out.
I read another book over the weekend, Temporary Sanity by Rose Connors, that honestly blew this one out of the water. She is like a female John Grisham, and you really get to know and care about the people in her book, which is what was missing with this one.
Much cornier than I would have expected!
This was my first MJC book, but having read the reviews, I expected an action-packed exciting book. What I got was a book that dragged on and on. I felt the writing was extremely choppy which was very frustrating (I tend to become a slow reader when the writing is this way... when it is well written, like I am able to fly through a book). I didn't feel the characters were that interesting or exciting... Annabelle, the main character, seemed like a nice sweet working mom, but I really couldn't feel passionate about her because the author just didn't create that for me.And then there's the ending... I really don't think it could have been any cornier... something about someone being allergic to dogs... Someone sneazing near a dog? Oh, please! No offense, but anyone who read and loved this book must never have read a well written, well thought out mystery!
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