susan ohnhaus

This is a horrible mash-up of a book. No mystery, no thrill, no nothing. Banal, boring, awful. I suppose it meets all the criteria for a movie and gifted screen writers will do better with the idea than the author. This is an example of a poorly written, poorly plotted, poorly everything type of offering that a publisher can sell in a number of cross genres but it really isn't any of them. Most revealing is the genre entitled Women's Fiction, which should warn the reader of it's mediocrity. Here's a synopsis: Creative woodworker successful female gives up studio on the east coast to marry man with ungrateful unhappy nasty daughter who becomes the archetype step-daughter and yuppie woodworker becomes archetypical whiny do everything to please the kid step-mother. Every other chapter is a flashback to their totally wonderful yuppie, or whatever it is, courtship. They drink great wine in upper class restaurants, toss healthy salads, just live that perfect moneyed lifestyle til he has to disappear for some reason, although I couldn't care less, after a federal raid on the company he works for. He leaves behind his step daughter, a duffle bag full of money, and a two word note, that just says "protect her" which his exwife believes means her step-daughter. Now this modern Ms Marple goes on some sort of mystery quest only to discover that all this time her vanished husband has been running from the mob that he believes is responsible for his late wife's death but really they are wonderful family types and supposedly although he wanted his daughter protected his sorta-widowed by abandonment wife connects with them and they all become one big happy family. No person who is well read, or even mediocre-read, in any of the cross genres here (mystery, thriller, etc) could be anything but bored by this tripe. Save your time, read something good.