Customer Reviews

Death at the Wheel (Thea Kozak Mysteries)

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I like Thea Kozak. Her work fascinates me, her love life intrigues me, her mother isn't perfect, which helps to make her real. I think the story line gets a bit violent. But my appreciation of the background will keep me reading Kate Flora's books.

What started off as an intriguing, fast-paced whodunit with a likeable protagonist in Thea Kozak soon began to test my patience. Thea is more victim than heroine, getting beat up, shot, and virtually murdered more times than any normal human being could possibly endure without lapsing into a coma. And still she lets her mother guilt-trip her into taking on the falsely accused's burden of proving her innocence. Perhaps it would be a little bit more believable if she were a actual private eye, like Kinsey Milhone, a cop, or a reporter. Instead, she's an educational consultant, an original occupation for a solver of mysteries, but where's the drama in that? At the very least, if she's going to be getting herself half-killed on the side, she should take a self-defense class. The way she chooses to defend herself against one attacker, for example, is to throw a ceramic cat at him - and miss. As for the mystery itself? I solved it way before she did, and I didn't get hurt in the process. I still read it to the end to find out how the killer is brought to justice, and, oh well, we don't get to see that part. The way the whole affair is wrapped up had me gaping in disbelief, the entire final chapter is a little too tidy and cliched. Very disappointing.

> This is the 3rd in the series featuring Thea Kozak, a New England educational consultant, as amateur sleuth. This time around she's been conscripted by her own mother to help a woman with 2 small children who is being blamed by the authorities for her husband's murder.
> Thea gets pretty banged up in this adventure, perhaps too often for credibility. I also found the motive for murder and the murderer a bit incredible. Still, who reads a mystery for its universality and theme? This is a good -- not a great, but a good -- read; and I look forward to catching up with Thea in her first 2 books which I have no as yet read.