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Book Review – Sinner or Saint, by Brenda Donelan

Sinner Or Saint

Sinner Or Saint by Brenda Donelan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Sinner or Saint is the first installment of Brenda Donelan’s University Mysteries that I’ve had the pleasure to read. I’m not generally a cozy fan, but I must say that this one has all the elements that true aficionados seek. Criminology professor Marlee McCabe is an interesting and engaging protagonist, and her hometown of Elmwood, South Dakota and it’s Midwestern State University are well-drawn. The book has plenty of offbeat characters – Marlee’s Supper Club of her college cronies, as well as old boyfriends, cops and townspeople. The mystery is puzzling with many twists and turns, and the solution is unexpected but satisfying as an evildoer gets his (or her!) just desserts. I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the series, and to future installments. I did drop the rating by one star because of the slow pace and lack of tension.



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Book Review – The Dog Thief and Other Stories, by Jill Kearney

The Dog Thief and Other Stories

The Dog Thief and Other Stories by Jill Kearney

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


An excellent book about broken people and their animal companions. The stories tell of life, and life is not always pretty, or elegant, or even worth living sometimes. You will find pathos here, but the author is well aware that there is beauty in pathos, even though it may be difficult or uncomfortable to notice. Her message is that there is primal bond between people and their pets, and sometimes an animal can give a person things that another human cannot, or will not. Some of the stories also depict the cruelty towards animals of which humans are capable, and it is hard to read these passages, but it is noteworthy that there’s never any cruelty towards the people from the animals. There’s a lesson in that.



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Book Review – Triptych, by Karin Slaughter

Triptych (Will Trent, #1)Triptych by Karin Slaughter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Karin Slaughter loves broken characters. Maybe too much. And maybe that’s why I can’t give five stars to this book. There’s a lot of good in it–the plotting, the pace, the wordsmithery and the suspense. But the characters, especially those in law enforcement, are so broken that I just can’t suspend disbelief enough to imagine they’d even be there. The characters’ flaws end up taking me out of the story again and and again, distracting me from the rest of the good about the book.

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