TEST
When I opted to review this book, I thought it was romantic suspense. It’s not; it’s a straight mystery/thriller, so if you’re looking for love, this’d be one of the wrong places. I enjoy straight suspense, and though Summer of Storms is a page-turner, had the heroine been a bit more on the ball (along with a few other characters), the book would have earned a much higher grade. The story elements are there, but ultimately, they don’t come together as well as they might have.
When Anna Jameson was three, her five-year-old sister, asleep in the next room, was strangled to death. It happened the night after Anna’s birthday party and their parents were tipsy and tired. Compounding the confusion, a hurricane hit New York City, bringing thunder, lightning, raging winds, and lots and lots of pounding rain. The storm was so noisy, nobody heard Julie’s cries for help. Did they?
After Julie’s death, the family moved to Charleston in an effort to get away from the media frenzy that surrounded their daughter’s murder (think JonBenet Ramsey). Dubbed The Sleeping Beauty Murder, the press hounded Anna’s parents for years. Books were written on it, TV shows investigated it, reporters dogged the family. (With all the murders that occur in NYC every year, why this case was such a huge deal is never explained. The Jameson’s were not rich or famous, so I was never sure why they were the subject of such intense focus.) The police had pretty much bungled the investigation to the point it became a cold case, unsolved, and all but forgotten. Except for the murderer. He never forgot, and now he’s back. Or did he ever leave?
It’s been thirty years. Anna is all grown up and works as a kiddie photographer � photo-journalism is more her line, but jobs have been hard to come by due to a run-in she had with a powerful senator (which I felt was just a plot device to keep her under-employed). When her beloved Uncle Eli calls Anna and tells her a big-wig news organization in New York has seen her work and loves it, she’s off to the city, to the scene of her sister’s horrible murder. Anna still has bad dreams about Julie’s murder, but she doesn’t think too much about them (and the author doesn’t delve into them at all).
While this is going on, in a parallel storyline, a group of NYPD forensic psychologists, known as the Arcanum, study and try to solve cold cases. When one of the members receives a mysterious, anonymous phone call that alludes to The Sleeping Beauty Murder, the group drops what they’re doing to research this very cold case. However, the Arcanum and Anna never cross paths. They never meet, yet the killer seems to know all about them, and her. Then, bad things begin to happen to the group’s members. Very bad things.
Summer of Storms has a huge supporting cast, most of whom are left dangling at the end with their storylines still untied. Anna is a protagonist lacking in common sense, and though the suspense held my interest while reading the book, after I’d finished and had a few days to reflect, things began to fall apart. I began asking the hard questions, and realized I was mildly dissatisfied with the book as a whole.
Anna should have been the Queen of Security after what happened to her sister, but she balks at installing the most basic safety devices. Also, the author paints a picture of New York City that is the antithesis of a travel brochure. If I had only this book to base my vacation choices on, New York City is the last place on earth I would ever want to visit. The book takes place over the span of about a week, during which time Anna’s new job is a confusing hit-and-miss affair with an employer from hell. A reporter she meets, Dixon Drake, seems to find Anna attractive, but he makes no move on her at all, even though she would like him to. She fights with and alienates her best friend, sends herself into perilous situations without a clue as to how she’s going to get out of them, and pretty much ignores basic survival instincts.
As for the Arcanum, it is staffed by a group of potentially fascinating people, and the technical/procedural stuff they do is interesting. But there are many gaps in their logic. They, too, did dumb things that set them up for possible harm. One of them, divorced with two daughters, had the makings of a fine hero, but even he does something totally out of character that puts people in jeopardy. As for the killer? The clues are there and I got them. I wasn’t for-certain-sure until the very end, but avid mystery readers will certainly figure it out. When finally he is revealed, we get the eleventh hour “How I Did It And Why” speech that precedes the “And Now I’m Going To Kill You” monologue that literary killers are so famous for. No quick and dirty, first, he’s gotta speechify. Most of my questions came as a result of this scene because I just couldn’t see how he’d been able to pull it off and the author provides no clues.
Summer of Storms could have been much better. I’ve not read this author before, but judging from her reviews at Amazon, she has many fans and is a popular mystery/suspense/thriller author. While it held my interest (the author’s style is very readable and it is suspenseful), once I put this book down, common sense reasserted itself and I found I had one too many problems with it to give it a whole-hearted recommendation.
Grade: C
Book Type: Suspense
Sensuality: N/A
Review Date: 29/07/02
Publication Date: 2002
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Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.