ISBN-13: 978-0-451-22535-1
Paperback, 304 pages
Signet

Reviewed by Marlene Pyle                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Pick up any mystery novel featuring a female heroine, and you’ll find they have one thing in common:  the main character is almost always stunningly beautiful.  Rarely over thirty, they tend to be slim, athletic and stylishly dressed.  Somehow they manage to solve crimes and apprehend murderers while running around in three inch heels and flawless make-up.  It’s like Charlie’s Angels thirty years later.

So it is refreshing and fun to read a novel about a woman who isn’t picture perfect at all times.  Lilley’s heroine, Kate Gallagher, is smart, dedicated and hard-working, but like most of us, she struggles with her weight.  She sweats.  She doesn’t dress like a runway model, because she couldn’t fit into those clothes if she tried.  She’s easy to relate to, because she seems real.

Best of all, Kate is not someone who feels sorry for herself.  Despite a few extra pounds, Kate is funny and upbeat.  She has a full life, complete with an interesting job, plenty of friends and more than enough romance.  Kate may be a little on the chubby side, but men are crazy about her.  She’s not sitting at home on Saturday nights with a pint of mocha chocolate chip.

The character is so appealing that it makes up for the fact that the story sometimes seems to go off in too many directions at once.  Besides the usual dead body (in this case there are two) you’ve got a couple of suspicious fires, a home break-in, one case of child abuse, embezzlement and a marijuana growing operation.  All that’s missing is the partridge in a pear tree.

There’s just too much going on here, and the novel gets a little confusing because of it.  It feels as if the author was trying to write a certain number of pages and had to inject a few scenes to reach her quota.  The novel would have flowed more smoothly and logically if the writing had been a little tighter and more focused.  Still, Kate Gallagher is a great main character and I’d like to see more of her—maybe in a shorter format.

Copyright © 2009, Marlene Pyle