Customer Reviews

Bad Lands: A Holmes & Storm Mystery (Five Star Mystery Series) (Five Star Mystery Series) (Five Star First Edition Mystery)

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Bad Lands is the first in a proposed mystery series by Selena Rosen and Laura J. Underwood. The "detectives" -Maggie Holmes and Vivian Storm are just about the oddest pair you could imagine. Maggie is a widowed, semi-retired middle-aged forensic pathologist who has a fascination with paranormal activity at murder sites. Her partner is a 30-something smart-mouthed lesbian bartender who moonlights as a police sketch artist and who is able to get uncanny descriptions of murderers because she relives the last moments of the deceased.

When Maggie is denied access to Knight Island-a private resort where there were mass murders on two different occasions, and where she wants to go to do research for her next book, she jumps on the chance to go as a contestant on the reality show 'Chicken Out'. The problem is, the show is only taking couples, so she tells them that she and Vivian are. Now she has to figure out how to break the news to Vivian that they've been accepted.

However, once they arrive, the stakes become higher than either had counted on as the bodies start piling up.

I really enjoyed this book. The characters are likable and believable if flawed and a little obnoxious at times. Rosen and Underwood have woven together a good story that leaves you guessing until the end. When you think you know who did it...think again. All-in-all, a book I'd highly recommend and a sequel I'm looking forward to.

"Bad Lands" is a marvelous mystery/thriller debut by the writing team of Selina Rosen and Laura J. Underwood. Known for their SF and fantasy novels, Rosen and Underwood team up to deliver a gut-punch of a thriller featuring the unlikely pairing of Vivian Storm, a salty police sketch artist with the ability to "see" the last moments of someone's death, and Maggie Holmes, a forensic pathologist in a money crunch.

When Holmes signs the pair up for a reality show set on the "haunted" Knight Island, things turn bloody as someone -- or something -- starts slaughtering the show's contestants one by one, mimicking the previous massacres on the island. Now Holmes and Storm must solve a 10-year-old mystery if they want to get off the island alive.

If you like tautly paced mysteries, snappy dialogue and one of the most ingenious pairings since Monk and Sharona Fleming, you'll love "Bad Lands".

Its rare that I find a book that I cannot put down. But Badlands was one of these books. I started out wanting a nice whodunnit for bedtime reading, and soon I found myself carrying this book with me everywhere and reading it in snatches of stolen time while at the Doctor's office and in the check out line at the supermarket.

The unreliable narrator is done very well in this book, with each author trading up writing duties on the chapters and setting them in the viewpoint of their character.

Although Vivian Storm kept me in stitches with her quirks (Including giving everyone and every thing an alternate name, from dubbing Kennedy, the producer of Chicken Out "Dead President Guy" to describing Maggie's ghostbusting equipment "spectrowhatzits".), Maggie Holmes isn't without her own humor. As the bodies start to stack up and the game falls apart, the seemingly level-headed Maggie bemoans the fact that the murders are interrupting her scientific investigation of the island.

I recommend Bad Lands to anyone who enjoys a fast-paced thriller.

This is a collaboration between two talented authors you should know about. I've been a fan of Selina Rosen's since picking up Queen of Denial. This is my first read of Laura Underwood, and I'm glad of the introduction.

The book is written from the perspective of two characters alternating chapters. The two are friends, from seemingly different worlds (one, a widow with grown children, the other, a wild single bartender proud of being a "butch lesbian") linked by their unusual work, interests, and ability in crime scene forensics. Each author writes a character.

The story itself is interesting and quite good -- Maggie wants to investigate Knight Island's potential paranormal activity for a book on the subject, but the only way to do it is to drag Vivian, who can feel the aftereffects of death in the hot spots where it happened, with her on a TV reality show. Except, they got more than they bargained for...

The characters are fun and well written - the approach of each author writing one of the characters works very well. The result is a fast-paced thriller that retains a sense of humor.

Seriously, this is a good read. Recommended to anyone who likes a good murder mystery thriller, has a sense of humor, and isn't a stick-in-the-mud.

This supernatural mystery by Rosen and Underwood brings us a new pair of psychic detectives and a send-up (or is it a put down?) of "reality" TV that might actually make it to a TV set near you. Maggie Holmes is a retired forensic pathologist who can see if a soul lingers after a murder. This has her obsessed with paranormal activity around murder cases, an obsession that has already created one popular book on the subject. Now, she wants to write about a horrible island -- the site of two mass-murders -- but the owners refuse to let her visit.

Unless, of course, Maggie wants to qualify for a reality show requiring her to: "survive a week on a haunted island." One catch: she has to be in a committed relationship. Well, Maggie isn't right now -- but she pretends to be with her friend Vivian Storm, a neurotic, psychic bartender who is also a tough lesbian and is both appalled and intrigued by the idea of the show. Multiple murders imprinted on the very sand of the island? No, thanks -- but the winners take a million bucks home, and Viv REALLY needs that money.

And so we enter the wacky world as seen by Maggie and Viv, who are friends because of their unusual gifts, and survivors by nature. Good thing, too - because when the bodies start dropping, it's either solve the murders or become victims.

And one thing Maggie and Viv aren't - is victims. Maggie is the kind of cool and eccentric person you'd like living next door, and Viv is so nuts you can't stop laughing. They're good people, and they know how to solve a mystery. I vote you give them a shot - I'll be watching for another book by Rosen & Underwood, and I hope to see Maggie and Viv again.

This is not my usual bill of fare -- I seldom read mysteries except the Carl Hiaasen novels -- so my only expectations were of good writing, and I got that. The story is taut and complex, a difficult trick for a writer to pull off, and the characters are so well drawn I felt a I knew them. Vivian Storm and Maggie Holmes convince the producers of a "reality" show, "Chicken Out" that they are a couple so they can compete. Storm is in it for the money, while Holmes would like the money but really wants to do some investigating on Knight Island, a site where two strings of serial killings occured at decades of intervals.

They don't anticipate that their visit provides the opportunity for a third string of murders to take place. It becomes a race (with one foot in a bucket of cement, as they are totally cut off from the outside world) to find the killer before the killer takes them out.

As I said, I felt I knew some of the characters and so I sometimes regretted the demise of a character and sometimes felt they hadn't died hard enough.

This is a first-rate book, and I'm happy I got the hardcover edition. For a quick read, a paperback is fine, but when I want to save a book and maybe savor it again later, a hardcover is necessary.

Selina Rosen and Laura Underwood have written an exceptional story that keeps you turning pages. Vivian Storm and Maggie Holmes are two friends who join a reality show, Chicken Out, so Maggie Holmes can explore Knight Island, a place where two serial murders took place twenty years between them. Maggie is a forensic pathologist who is finishing up her book, Badlands, about serial murders.

Maggie's friend, Vivian, is a police sketch artist who is also psychic and sees the final moments of what the victim sees where the person dies. Together, they hope to win a million dollars and explore the island for Maggie's book.

Only problem is, people are getting killed. Now, it's a race to find the murderer and get off the island before the murderer kills them.

This is a great mystery/thriller. You won't be able to put it down.

Paranormal forensic pathologist Maggie Holmes, has tried unsuccessfully twice to gain access to Knight Island, where two violent serial murders occurred two decades apart. She gave up any hope of ever getting there until she finds out that the reality show Chicken Out will stage an event there. Maggie maneuvers her way onto the show with her partner being her friend lesbian police sketch artist Vivian Storm, a psychic bartender, who reluctantly agreed after the fact when she learns they will split a million dollars when they win.

Other teams vie with the two females for the prize, but almost immediately upon debarking one member of a duo of cooks is murdered and the boats to leave Knight Island destroyed. A killer is on the loose with more homicides. Maggie applies her forensic skills along with Vivian's sketches of what the victims' last saw before dying in an attempt to stop a brutal serial killer from adding them to the list.

This gruesome Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None Survivor thriller hooks the audience from start to finish seeing whether Holmes and Storm are left standing as elimination from this reality show is by death. The story line is graphic especially when Vivian sees what the dead saw; not sure how she lives with these nightmarish final pictures. Although too gory at times (unless you have the stomach of Vivian), the BAD LANDS is a tense thriller tale as Holmes investigates with Vivian as her able assistant.

Harriet Klausner