Customer Reviews

The Crocodile's Last Embrace: A Jade del Cameron Mystery

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The Crocodile's Last Embrace by Suzanne Arruda is the sixth book in the Jade del Cameron series. Jade's story picks up four months after Treasure of the Golden Cheetah. Her long-time love, pilot Sam Featherston, has left her in Africa to figure out if she truly wants him to be in her life while he tries to sell his film in Hollywood. While trying to lay to rest any remaining sorrow from her time in Europe as a nurse during WWI, she spends time in the battlefields and is horrified to see what appears to be her dead fiance, David. Returning home to Africa, she continues to see visions that frighten and unsettle her and soon she and her friends realize that Jade's archnemesis, Lilith Worthy, has escaped from prison and may be behind all of the murders and frights. I fell in love with Jade in the first novel in this series: Mark of the Lion. Her fierce spirit and independence carried through to the next two books: Stalking Ivory and The Serpent's Daughter, but somewhere in the next two, I felt like the essence of Jade was lost. She was isolating herself so much from friends and Sam that she became difficult to understand and the mysteries weren't up to the standard of the previous titles. It was with trepidation that I read this newest title, because I had decided, if I didn't like it, I was giving up on the series. I was completely blown away from Arruda's writing in this novel. It is absolutely the best of the entire series, and worth reading even the lesser books to get to. Jade is so unsettled by the villain's gaslighting that when she returns to herself, it is a new start to the entire series. The mystery and suspense is incredible, I don't think I even breathed through the last fifty pages. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a book this much. The writing is thrilling; the action and adventure heart-stopping. The Crocodile's Embrace will remind readers why they love to read: strong and beautiful heroines with a heart, stoic and handsome heroes who will sacrifice anything for the woman they love, and villains who are sinister and smart who will stop at nothing to destroy them. I loved it!

In 1921 Lilith Worthy escapes from her London prison. Her intent is to go to Africa to destroy those she blames for enabling Pili, her late husband's offspring from the wrong side of the sheets, to inherit half his estate. The Widow's targets are photojournalist Jade del Cameron and her colleagues Lord and Lady Avery Dunbury.

Soon after Lilith's escape, having returned to Kenya Jade begins to receive messages from overseas allegedly sent by her beloved David, the Widow's legitimate son. The only problem with the hurtful accusatory notes besides their cruelty is David died in Jade's arms. At the same time that Jade is the recipient of a personal terror campaign that makes her wish that her boyfriend pilot Sam Featherston was in town, someone murders several people associated with a gold mine deal that obviously has turned ugly.

This is a strong Jade del Cameron historical adventure mystery (see The Serpents' Daughter, The Leopard's Prey and Treasure of the Golden Cheetah) in which the dangerous denizen of the jungle like crocs are harmless compared to the even deadlier Homo sapiens. As always in this wonderful series, Suzanne Arruda provides readers with an insightful light on the "Dark Continent". The focus especially is on Kenya as the geography, the assault on the indigent native population by "illegal" Western immigrants, and a deep look at the local customs. All this occurs inside a powerful thriller.

Harriet Klausner

I usually like to read series fiction in order, but picked this one up and could not stop turning pages. The combination of mystery and suspense and great descriptions of Africa from a bygone era make for a great book. Add wonderful characters, especially the main character Jade Del Cameron, an American who can fly a plane, handle a rifle and communicate in more than one language. In spite of finding herself in the midst of unsavory characters, she makes new friends as she solves a mystery from the past and even has time for some romance. This book stands alone nicely, but I liked it so much I am currently reading the first book in this series and plan to read the rest.

The Jade del Cameron mystery books are rather campy but fun. Don't take them too seriously and you can really enjoy them. Jade is young, beautiful, and smart. She can shoot and throw like an Olympic athlete, rides a motorcycle, flies a plane, and has a pet cheetah. All this in 1921! And everywhere she goes, people are murdered. And she usually finds them. In this, book #6 in the series, she is miserable because her lover, Sam, had broken off their engagement and left months ago. She realizes she can't live without him but doesn't know where he is or if he will return. She decides to keep herself busy by helping a friend run a Girl Guide troop in Nairobi. But, like usual, she runs across what appears to be a murder. And then another one. But she is also receiving strange packages and seeing visions of her former dead fiance, David. Soon it becomes apparent that his wicked mother is out to kill her. Will Sam come back and rescue her?

First Line: From his hidden vantage point, the man watched the young American woman called Simba Jike.


Returning from a rather ill-advised trip to Europe where all destinations did nothing but dredge up painful memories, Jade del Cameron greets the sight of Kenya with two certainties: Africa is her home, and Sam Featherstone is the man she wants to spend her life with. When a letter arrives, Jade hopes it's from Sam, telling her the date of his return. Instead, she finds a message written in the hand of her long-dead fiance, asking "Why did you let me die?"

After witnessing a car going off a bridge and having more deaths follow, Jade begins an investigation that she believes is tied in with a fraudulent gold mine scheme, but when she learns that her old nemesis, Lilith Worthy has escaped from an English prison, Jade knows the case has just turned every bit as deadly as that huge, hungry crocodile that's been hanging around the foot of Fourteen Falls.

Although this Biscuit fan thought the cheetah was cheated out of his share of the spotlight in this book, I really did enjoy The Crocodile's Last Embrace. Arruda continues to draw more and more news and information of the period and the surrounding colonies into the books to give the reader an excellent sense of what life was like in Africa in the early twentieth century. For instance, this time we learned what Leopold, King of the Belgians, had his minions doing in the Congo.

These books just about have it all for me-- probably because I fell in love with and watched "Out of Africa" at least once per week while it was in the theatres here in Phoenix. To have an ongoing series of books dealing with roughly the same time frame, the same land, the wildlife, the early days of aviation and photojournalism is a delight.

The delight does not end with the aforementioned list. Arruda has a cast of characters that continues to adapt and grow with each new experience. Of course the major changes belong to Sam and Jade as these two fiercely independent people have to figure out if they can truly be together, but they aren't the only two who've changed through the passage of books. Just ask Jelani, the young Kikuyu boy befriended by Jade.

Speaking of younger characters, the young band of Girl Guides that Lady Dunbury is trying to gather under her wing? They're a hoot. Whenever those youngsters appeared, they made me laugh. I certainly hope they'll make another appearance in Jade's next adventure. I'll be looking for them (and Biscuit)!

The one thing most readers want to know about a book in a series is can they pick it up, read it, and not get confused if they haven't read any of the other books? In the case of The Crocodile's Last Embrace, readers should not have a problem, since Arruda included enough information from previous books to fill in the gaps.