I am a long-time fan of Judy Clemens' other mystery series featuring tattooed dairy farmer Stella Crown, so I looked forward to reading this first in a new series. As I turned the pages, I enjoyed being immersed once more in Clemens' writing style, and I quickly warmed to her main character. Casey Maldonado is an extremely likeable-- and extremely sympathetic-- character. With such a tremendous tragedy in her life, you can't help but want things to turn the corner and start to go well for her. Even though she wants to be left alone to simmer away in her grief, she can't resist checking into the death of this beloved local woman.

Small town setting, pacing, story, characters... they're all good, as I've come to expect from this talented writer. Where the book fails, the responsibility falls on my own shoulders. I think I wanted Death to play a much more prominent role than he does. In this book he is pretty much surplus to requirements, off on the periphery eating a chicken leg, or behaving like a pesky housefly. With such a marginal presence, I found it very difficult to "buy into" Death as a character. What can I say? It's still a well-written story, and it should please most readers. Unfortunately, I'm the reader standing towards the back, with narrowed eyes and a skeptical expression.

Share/Like this Review?

First in the series. According to my transaction archive, I read this a long time ago but I honestly don't remember it. Anyway I'm going to read the whole series in order now. I liked the pacing, good dialogue, and good supporting characters - almost all of them felt like they could exist. I liked how Death just shows up at various points, poking Casey into action without telling her what to do or saying anything concrete, really, and it's interesting how a few other people can see Death as well. What do they see when they look at Death, and why don't they know who she is like Casey does? Clemens provided a big fat clue to whodunit fairly early on but I didn't pick up on it. Although we get a lot from Casey about her grief, and a few flashbacks of her previous life, she seems reather enigmatic. I didn't understand is why she obviously feels in danger from the car company representatives, I guess there is a reason as they keep chasing Casey around the country, but there doesn't seem to be a solid reason why.

Share/Like this Review?