Book Review - Dead Air

Dead Air by Deborah Shlian
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This audiobook kept me company in the hospital until I got to disc 4. If I had downloaded this for pay I would have been furious; but this was checked out online from the library. You see, disc 4 got steadily faster and faster and no adjustments to my playback speed on my iPod could make a difference. Halfway through, I was listening to a chipmunk on speed. Much past that it wasn't understandable at all so I had to skip the rest of that disc. Whether or not that affected my enjoyment of the book and the plot I'm not certain, but I felt it best to disclose that I missed a big chunk of the middle of the book.

This mystery is a bit outdated, though it takes place on a college campus in the era during which I was in college, so I enjoyed it. I didn't realize at first that this was an older book, so I was a bit confused as to why things had to be so complicated for the main character. Couldn't she just look X up on the net? Get on Wikipedia for pete's sake! Why are you so unreachable for your boyfriend, can't he call your cell? Why is the hospital using such an outdated paging system? Hah! Once I figured it out it made much more sense. Sheesh but it was harder to solve mysteries before modern technology existed.

All in all it's a serviceable mystery with a decent plot and some good characters. That said I had the big baddie figured out from his first appearance and kind of thought the main character was a little dim for not making the connections herself. I like mysteries better when I'm surprised and this was a tad predictable. It does, however, serve up some decent entertainment as a middle of the road read. Good to kill some time with when you're bored silly.

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Book Review - The Distant Hours

The Distant Hours by Kate Morton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was one of those books that, once I finished it, I couldn't read anything else for a while because I was so caught up in the world of the book.

There's a creepy old gothic castle, a trio of delightfully eccentric spinsters, mysteries that date back to WWII, a fascinating bookish heroine who discovers family secrets she never dreamed of, love, deception, selfishness and generosity. And it is beautifully woven into a narrative that moves seamlessly through several different eras and the minds of many wildly different characters. I re read some passages just because I found the writing so delightful. For me, it was a vacation in a book, and a fantastic escape.

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