Hemlock Bay

Rating:
Summary: Supernateral Highjincks
Review: Catherine Coulter's new mystery Hemlock Bay brings back two of my favorite characters, Dillon Savich and Lacey Sherlock, who are now married and have a child, Sean. Savich's sister,Lily, is in a terrible mess which involes her husband of 18 months,his parents and her Sarah Elliot paintings. Lily is helped by a friend of her brother's ,Simon Russo, who is an art dealer of sorts and discover's that four of Lily's paintings have been stolin and replaced with very good forgeries. Savich and Sherlock are also on the trail of the Tuttle brother's who kidnap young boys and then kill them. The Tuttle brother's are not what they seem. The supernatural highjincks involve the Tuttle's and and unknown force only known as the Ghouls. Overall I enjoyed the book. It was a fast read and fun. Ms. Coulter is getting better with her modern mysteries. I do enjoy her historical romance novels more but, I am becoming a fan of her modern mystery novels as well.

Rating:
Summary: Madness, Murder and Mishaps
Review: The latest in the series featuring FBI agent Dillon Savich and his wife Lacey Sherlock involves two subplots: a kidnapping of two teenage boys and the apparent suicide attempt of Dillon's younger sister Lily. Lily's daughter died in an accident 7 months ago, and she has been depressed and distraught since then, but her brother and sister-in-law believe that she is not suicidal and that someone is trying to kill her.

The complicated plot involves Lily's second husband, who apparently is not as sincere and loving as he pretends to be, Simon Russo, art broker, and the invaluable paintings, now worth millions, left to Lily by her grandmother.

The subplot involving the counterfeit paintings is interesting and believable, and the developing relationship between Lily and Simon is worked out to a satisfactory conclusion; however the plot involving the kidnappings and the bizarre, evil woman who ruthlessly preys on innocent victims is incredibly weird and contrived and not well integrated with the rest of the book.

The author should have developed one plot or the other, but not both in the same book. Some of the characters are not well developed, the dialogue is stiff and contrived, and some aspects of the plot just plain silly. Fortunately, I borrowed this book from the library, so it wasn't a waste of money as well as a waste of time!

Rating:
Summary: I'd like my time back
Review: This is possibly the worst book I've ever read. This had some of the worst dialogue I've ever read and most of the details in the book were used multiple times and were completely unnecessary. The story was completely implausable and offered no explanation as to any information behind the supernatural phenomenon. Not even the characters in the book are confident enough to state that the criminal had supernatural powers or if she was just some david Copperfield wanna-be. What was up with the cartoonist sister who drew some terrible comic strip. An androgenous computer, an androgenous criminal? Crazy swedes. Sure, I like to suspend my beliefs and enjoy out of this world stories, but this was just garbage. After 5 pages I knew that it was bad, but was compelled and perversely curious as to how bad the book could really get. I should've stopped after the five pages. How is that a NYT bestseller? No one in that books should be named sherlock unless it's someone looking for talents because Ms. Coulter doesn't have any.