Customer Reviews

Digging Up Death (Kay Engles Mystery)

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

 

 

Archeologist Vera Contas leads her first dig, ironically fifty feet from Wall Street, at the site of a future office building. She is trying to prove whether Captain Kidd buried some of his infamous booty at this location over three hundred years ago. Vera invites her long time friend, reporter Kay Engles to attend and report on the dig. When her magazine editor gives Kay the okay, she heads to Wall Street to follow the story.

However, the intriguing story takes a twist when Kay's car is vandalized. Upset, Kay decides to revert back to her former days as an investigative reporter and do some digging, her style. Soon, a modern day corpse of a construction worker is found and the real estate developer is murdered. Even as Vera becomes the prime suspect, Kay continues to investigate what is really happening in the Financial District of Manhattan.

DIGGING UP DEATH takes the reader on a fun tour of the Big Apple through the eyes of Kay, a wonderful character. However, the two major story lines (modern day murder Vs a historical puzzle) never blend together, thereby leaving the novel with a schizoid feel to it. Both major plots are quite good in and of themselves, but the failure to decide which line rules leaves this tale stuck on a day "hotter than a match stick" at the Fulton Fish Market. For a better taste of Kay, try MURDER AT THE CLASS REUNION.

Harriet Klausner

A bit better than the first book of the series, but the writing is still bad, the characters are shallow and underdeveloped, and the dialogue is stilted and painful to read.

Definitely not worth the money.

To be completely honest, this is one of those books that is mildly interesting when you read it, and then slips completely off your radar the moment you put it down. There was absolutely nothing that stands out about it, either good or bad. The characters were so-so, the plot was okay, and the writing was fine, there was just nothing spectacular about it. On the flip side, there was nothing awful about it, either. It's a generic cozy-type mystery with generic mystery characters and a standard mystery plot. Good for whiling away a lazy weekend afternoon.