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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
What Do You Do When Everybody's A Suspect?, June 10, 2007
You look a little deeper than the FBI. ;-)
"Wanted Immediately: reporter And Editor to run successful small town newspaper. Owner/pub retiring."
Maxine Stryker is a crime reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, until the announcement comes on the news that the Knight Ridder newspaper chain has been sold. When Max receives her pink slip, she makes a drastic decision; to go home and work for the local newspaper, something she had promised herself that she would never, ever do. Nothing more exciting than happened in Willow Creek then when the moose ran over Pete Bjornson. That's quite a step down for her.
Not to mention that, when she arrives, she's cast right into the middle of the mayhem. It seems that someone in the town has kidnapped the bank president. The only big problem, as Max gets caught up in this mystery, and has to deal with the FBI getting in the way as well, is who in the town did not have a motive to kidnap and ransom the womanizing bank president. Some folks are even surprised that he wasn't just killed outright, rather than ransomed.
This story has several layers that catch and hold your attention, or at least, caught mine. ;-) The townsfolk are colorful enough to draw you in, and some of them could even be your own neighbors. Not that they are, of course, especially not the moose. The ensuing mayhem has the FBI chasing the most obvious suspects, but Max grew up with these people and knows them a bit better then some guys from DC. She does quite a bit of digging, of the type you could only do in a small town where everyone knows one another. Still, with Max coming back from the "big city", there's a viewpoint that could appeal to everyone.
The ending itself twists several degrees, so it can catch you by surprise, especially when the entire town is a suspect. Well, those who were actually in the town at the time of the kidnapping.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A "whodunit" that's first and foremost an enjoyable story, May 10, 2007
Maxine Stryker, called "Max" by everyone but her mother, couldn't wait to leave Willow Creek in northern Minnesota. She's loved her years since then, as a reporter covering the Twin Cities crime beat. That life is over, though, because she's been laid off. The last place on earth she wants to go now is back to Willow Creek, but that's where opportunity chooses to knock. The Herald, tiny local weekly where Max began her journalism career, needs a replacement for its soon-to-retire owner/publisher. When Max phones her parents to tell them she's coming home, she's promptly booted off the line by - of all things to happen in quiet little Willow Creek! - a kidnapping. Max's father is the local police chief, and that phone line has to stay open.
I've never been a mystery fan, but Janet Elaine Smith and Margaret Frazer (author of the wonderful Dame Frevisse medieval mysteries series) have taught me to appreciate a "whodunit" that's first and foremost an enjoyable story. Both authors present the reader with characters that surprise, even when those characters appear at first to be stereotypical for their time and place; and both have a knack for making the setting itself a character of sorts, not just a framework for the tale. This book is the first in a new series, the Max Stryker Mysteries, and it's a fine start.
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