Customer Reviews

Deep Waters

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The London media led by Daily Globe reporter Lilith Noone feeds the public's fascination with celebrities when Muffin, the baby daughter of reality TV show hosts Jodee and Chazz, dies in her cot. Lilith has the inside track to England's most famous grieving couple. Since the infant passed away in her district, All Saints Church curate Callie Anson assists with the funeral arrangement.

Meanwhile the autopsy of the crib death victim raises some anomies that have the police wondering if this was a tragic sudden infant death case or something more sinister. There are enough questions to have the brass bring back Detective Inspector Neville Stewart on his honeymoon with his pregnant bride Triona. At the same time that a frustrated Neville and an angry Triona return to London, Callie's boyfriend family liaison officer Mark Lombardi is helping his extended family cope with the heart attack death of his brother-in-law so he is unable to provide much help to Jodee and Chazz or be there for Callie.

The key to this terrific combination police procedural and faith-based amateur sleuth inquiry is the strong cast; few novels will match how deep the secondary and tertiary characters are developed within an exciting story line. Fans will appreciate the depth to the Lombardi brood, Lilith, Jodee, Chazz and Triona while Mark and Callie have issues as does Neville. All this with a strong whodunit and an insightful look at behind the scenes of reality TV make the third Anson mystery (see SECRET SINS and EVIL INTENT) a winner.

Harriet Klausner

Although Kate Charles is an excellent writer and creates an interesting plot, I find I much prefer her earlier series, featuring David Middleton-Brown as the detective.

Callie Anson is a rather bland character for the protagonist, although many of the supporting characters make up for her.

I'm a bit worried that Kate Charles is flagging a bit. This is her second eccclesiastical mystery series, and the third book in that series, each of which features Anglican curate Callie Anson and her beau, police officer Mark Lombardi. The problem? Anyone who has read the two previous books (particularly the debut, which is excellent) knows all about Callie, Mark and the peripheral characters. So the challenge for Charles is to keep the characters fresh by putting them in new or particularly intriguing situations.

In this novel, she certainly tries hard. Both Callie and Mark are caught up in the mysterious death of Muffin, the baby daughter of a celebrity TV couple. (Think Big Brother reality show celebs...) That's a big enough story in its own right, but the 'subplot' revolves around the mysterious death of Mark's own brother-in-law and the tensions that creates for both he and Callie and their relationship. Either of these mysteries is a meaty one; both of them -- especially when combined by the even more melodramatic relationship of Mark's fellow police officer, Neville, and his new wife, Triona -- are too much to do justice to in a book this length. Both are well resolved -- the plot twists are good, and the two deaths are neatly if somewhat tenuously linked in the theme of popular culture. Still, the result isn't quite as gripping as I've come to expect from this capable writer. If you haven't read her other books, I'd start with anything from her first series (A Drink of Deadly Wine or the first in this series Evil Intent, which has a very gripping and tightly-focused plot.

Rated 3.5 stars; rounded up rather than down because of the author's previous work.

The curious thing about all three books is that the clergy in them are seldom in the foreground. Especially after the first book. This is pretty cool -- maybe some clergy really are servant leaders, and that is definitely the case with Callie Anson. Her love and involvement for her parishioners is primary. Nice.

I find the portrayal of Jane as a lay person especially moving. She is not a nice character, but Charles makes her emininently understandable. A woman who married a priest as a partner in his labors, going without many things to save money, make his life easier -- is suddenly displaced by an ordained curate who assumes that partnership and to whom Jane's husband blithely offers perks that were formerly hers.

The characters are memorable and strongly drawn.

DEEP WATERS by Kate Charles tells of the death of a celebrity baby and a high-profile case one detective Neville Stewart is recalled from his honeymoon to investigate. Another death follows and soon police liaison Mark Lombardi finds himself in an impossible position in this fine murder mystery.

No one writes the Clerical Mystery better than Kate Charles. Deep Waters, unlike the first two books in the series, is more about Callie Anson's personal life than it is about problems facing the contemporary church. Charles isn't at the absolute top of her game in this book, but I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Although I am a fan of Kate Charles' Callie Anson murder mystery series, I just could not get beyond this book's extremely faulty premise - that the London police department is so without competent inspectors that one on his week-length honeymoon in Spain - and a major character in this novel -- just HAD to return early to look into an infant's suspicious death. London is one of the three biggest cities in the world! Its police department rivals that of New York City! They only had ONE inspector who could investigate this?? Absolutely RIDICULOUS!! This so flawed the book for me that I was not even interested in finishing it. Skip it.