Customer Reviews

Degrees of Separation

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Winter is coming and Jessie Arnold's knee is finally healed enough for her to think about taking her dogs out to train for a race, perhaps the Iditarod again. After the first snow fall, they go out for a practice run and when Jessie heads down the trail back to her house, she runs over a dead body hidden by the snow. While she tries to leave the investigation to her Alaska State Trooper boyfriend, Alex, she keeps getting unavoidably involved.

Along with the murder, there is an earth quake providing a lot of interesting information about tremors in Alaska.

The part I enjoyed most was when Jessie's friend Maxie, of the Maxie and Stretch mysteries (i.e., The Refuge), along with her canine companion, Stretch, comes to visit Jessie and Alex for a few days. While there, she provides valuable insight into possible solutions to the mystery. Since it has been a while since we've had a new Maxie mystery, it is a treat to get an update on what she's been doing lately.

I've missed the Jessie Arnold mysteries since Jessie has been out of commission from her injury and this book turned out be a real treat by including Maxie and Stretch. Recommended!

No Jesse Arnold mystery is ever bad, but Degrees of Separation is particularly lovely, as it has, despite a murder early on that must be solved, a gentle and contented ambience that is wonderful for regular readers.

After her bad knee injury in an earlier book, Jesse is chomping at the bit to get back into mushing...and although it is Fall, a few Alaska snowflakes are beginning to make their appearance. Happily "shacked up" with sexy Trooper Alex Jensen (to regular readers, this is just perfect), Jesse happily sets out on her practice trail in a trial run--to test out her knee, and her dogs. On the trail, she runs over a bump in the trail--that turns out to be a dead body.

Badly shaken, Jesse notifies Alex, who of course gets entwined in the mystery. And here is a great surprise for Sue Henry readers: Wonderful Maxie and Stretch make a guest appearance for half the book! Those who read that series as well will be warmed by the interplay between Maxie, who has come to visit, and her hosts, Alex and Jesse.

In due time, the mystery, which is actually quite pallid in comparison with earlier books, is solved--but Henry actually leaves a few loose ends, such a unique situation for a mystery novel, which always has to cross every t and dot every i!!

One assumes the loose ends will continue into the next installment, and I, for one, cannot wait.

I've been waiting for next Sue Henry book for a long time. I was a bit disappointed by it. It lacked the landscape with the descriptions of snow. I didn't like how Maxie showed up, because thats a branch off into another series and it felt as if it was a second attempt to get readers involved in the Maxie and Stretch series (which I'm not interested in). This book didn't take me back to Alaska like the rest of the series, maybe too much was going on, maybe not enough.
But I still love Sue Henry's books and will read the next one, but I just hope she is able to bring me back into another world again.

The theory of "Six Degrees of Separation" refers to the idea that, if someone is one step away from each person he or she knows and two steps away from each person who is known by one of the people he or she knows, then everyone is an average of six "steps" away from each person on Earth.

In Sue Henry's book, Degrees of Separation, Alaskan dog sled musher Jessica Arnold returns after months of recuperation from a devastating knee injury. The first snows of winter are starting and Jessica and her dogs are eager to hit the trails. On the first sled-able day, Jessica and companions glory in being on the trail again until they hit a bump in the trail. They literally have run across a dead body.

Jessica tries to keep out of the investigation begun by her live-in boyfriend, Alaska state trooper Alex Jensen. In the course of the investigation, she keeps getting drawn back in by one or two degrees of separation. Add the confusion and scares of the all-too-real Alaskan earthquakes that are shaking up the area, and Jessica's formerly remote wilderness home becomes a scene of chaos. To help shake things up, you are treated by a visit from savvy senior RV'er Maxie and her canine companion Stretch, both featured in their own Sue Henry series.

A tense storyline with amazingly realistic characterizations evolves into a mystery that showcases the great Alaskan wilderness and the strong women and friendships that endure the tests of nature and man.

by Rhonda Esakov
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women

This is absolutely the worst book I've ever read, and I'm including the Hardy Boys series, and books written to that level of intellect. There's virtually no suspense, it's short &, still, redundant, character development is non-existant & the story is boring. Frankly I wouldn't give it a full star.

I've been meaning to add this author to my regular reading list because it's based on places with which I'm familair. Now, after reading this book, I don't think so. Stilted, amateurish, ungrammatical, one dimensional characters................I was reading this out loud to others in disbelief.

This book never got interesting, nor did it bring back any sense of why I used to really look forward to these books. The most interesting parts were the earthquakes and aftershocks. I was hoping for a real doozy, but, alas, no such luck.

I like that Maxey and Stretch made an appearance in this book. Without them, it would have been an endless succession of "goodbye, trooper," and "it's snowing," intermingled with "I think I'll take the dogs for a run."

I listened to the audio version of this book, and perhaps that's why it dragged worse than a dogsled in frozen mud. Even Tank did nothing but go for occasional truck rides. Finding the body that signaled the onset of the mystery wasn't much of a launch, either.

If I want a life this dull, I can live it myself.

Sue Henry needs a good editor. Two plot points were just dropped: why both Phil Becker and Sharon Parker were attacked. Apparently, we are to assume that those crimes were unrelated to the Donny Thompson murder. Also, the writing was often stilted and awkward, though this is true of her other books too, especially "The Refuge." What's going on?

I am a big fan of Sue Henry, but thought the Degrees of Separation was not
her best book. The last few pages were up to her usual exciting, Who Done
It, element but reading about Jessie and Alex was too much of the same. I
almost thought I was reading a book I'd read before.

I would have loved more about Maxie and Stretch. Their adventurers together
on the road are the best.

Waiting to read End of the Road when it comes in paperback.

Delanna Schneider

This is the weakest book in the Jessie Arnold series. The mystery is lame, the characterization nonexistent and the dialog more awkward than usual. A couple of gratuitous earthquakes are tossed in -- apparently to make up for the lack of local colour -- but do nothing to add to the interest.