Raise the Dead

Rating:
Summary: Just Keeps Getting Better
Review: Mysteries don't get much better than this. I found her novel, FRUITCAKE, a couple years ago and read it in one night. After that I did everything I could to get my hands on her other books. Sad to say most of them came from Amazon, as your local Borders rarely carries them. And RAISE THE DEAD carries on in splendid Rubino style. Cat is one of the best women slueths around, and I love how Rubino weaves in elements from her other books (in this one we learn what happened to Cat's deceased husband, Chris). And what a cliff-hanger of an ending! I can't wait for the next one!

Rating:
Summary: A Ten Star Mystery with a Heart-Stopping Twist
Review: Normally mysteries are not my cup of Twinning's Irish Breakfast but I've read a couple of this lady's novels and I'm always impressed with her writing. She tells a good story and the characters are convincing and enjoyable to read. This is no less true in her latest page turner. Hope you all like it as much as I did.

Rating:
Summary: Loved it
Review: Normally mysteries are not my cup of Twinning's Irish Breakfast but I've read a couple of this lady's novels and I'm always impressed with her writing. She tells a good story and the characters are convincing and enjoyable to read. This is no less true in her latest page turner. Hope you all like it as much as I did.

Rating:
Summary: exciting conclusion to a delightful Jersey murder miniseries
Review: Ray Stites has six weeks to live if he fails to receive treatment; he has fourteen if he does, but he owes $50K and heath care is very expensive. He worries about how his beloved Kathleen will pay the bills he leaves behind when he receives a unique offer. If he kills three people, his debts will be paid and Kathleen will receive money to live off of. He agrees to kill a woman, a cop and himself.

Three years later in the Delaware Valley, widow reporter Cat Austen raises her two children alone. Cat overhears her lover, Cape May County Homicide Investigator Victor Cardenas, tell an associate that he loves her, wants to marry her, but must tell her the truth Raise the Dead about her late husband Chris, a murdered cop. Stunned Cat begins making inquiries after confronting Victor who hides behind national security. She finds a tie to Kathleen Stites and the State of Art Fertility Clinic where she got pregnant, but the link to murdering Chris remains vague; Still someone wants her to back off from learning why her husband was killed.

This is an exciting conclusion to a delightful Jersey murder miniseries that hooks readers with the three interrelated subplots tying together with no loose ends. The story line is action-paced as the audience learns along with Cat why Chris was murdered and whether her new love Victor was an instrument in her late husband's death. Cat makes the tale in her need to know the truth regardless of what she learns and how she may feel if the betrayal she suspects is real. Jane Rubino furbishes a powerful thriller that will send readers seeking more of her terrific mysteries.

Harriet Klausner


Rating:
Summary: A Jewel from Jersey
Review: This long-awaited book in Rubino's Cat Austen/Victor Cardenas series is a fast-paced mystery that takes a suprising turn, and leaves you breathless to the very last page. The hilarious dialogue, the complex relationships and the plot twist that puts a new and dramatic interpretation on the series, to this point are all the marks of a first rate mystery writer. Rubino never plays it safe and never serves up the same old formula, as many mystery writers seem to do - Raise the Dead is a unique and unforgettable read!

Rating:
Summary: A Ten Star Mystery with a Heart-Stopping Twist
Review: What can I say about Jane Rubino's latest? Hilarious. Thrilling. Heartbreaking. Suspenseful. Surprising. The book's flashback prologue puts a new twist on the murder of Cat Austen's husband, one that has dramatic and stunning repercussions. The plot also brushes up against the matter of embryonic life in a way that is not preachy, or clinical, or political because she puts her own characters into a situation where THEY are forced to think about the subject in a new light. I don't know of any other writer who is so willing to take risks with her characters or whose books I can't put down, then can't stop thinking about them once I've finished. And if you think Rubino couldn't pull off a better plot twist than Plot Twist's, are you in for a shock!