Customer Reviews

The Jinx (Rachel Benjamin Mysteries, No. 2)

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

 

 

Rachel Benjamin is back (last seen in "The Pact")! Investment banker by trade, and frustrated wanna-be sleuth, she has definitely seen far too many Agatha Christie movies!

She is tapped by her firm to recruit new graduates at her alma mater, Harvard. She and her four gal-pals coincidentally are having an annual get-together and her long distance boyfriend Peter will be in from San Francisco for a glorious week attending a conference, leaving them plenty of time to cuddle. Of course, a wrench is thrown into her plans. The Boston police are baffled by a series of murders and a client is injured in what may be a copycat attack by a stalker who writes bad poetry.

While putting on her investigator's cap, she devotes all her time to the stalking victim, whose company is in the throes of a hostile takeover. Rachel manages to spend little time with the new recruits; less time with her girlfriends, and no time with Peter, who is busy schmoozing a client with his very sexy assistant. She spends more time with Jonathan, a former crush who is now a professor.

While an interesting premise, the execution of the story is lacking. The group of friends, who were interesting in the first novel, don't have a whole lot to do here and it is difficult to tell them apart. In fact, if this was a movie, all would be combined to make one composite character. And I too was a little tired of hearing about her Diet Coke addiction.

Winslow, Brown investment banker Rachel Benjamin piles up the frequent flyer miles working mergers and acquisitions. Her boyfriend Peter Forrest works across the continent in San Francisco, but soon will join Rachel in Boston where she is on assignment and he is attending a conference. Over the six months together they have seen each other when either is on the other coast or over holidays at the homes of relatives.

Rachel thinks this relationship is going to last, which surprises her because usually her confidence is zero when it comes to the staying power of men. However, she is concerned that Peter's assistant Abigail is beautiful, brainy, and on the left coast. . Already thinking of trailing Peter, Rachel becomes sidetracked when someone attacks her friend Sara who lands in the hospital. Unable to ignore the PACT she made with Sara and three other friends back in college, Rachel combines the two situations into a big investigation to uncover who battered Sara and whether Peter is cheating with Abigail, not knowing which one is more dangerous to her heath.

With a pinch of chick lit as Rachel wonders if she is THE JINX in her relationships (Murphy looks optimistic next to her), this is a fine amateur sleuth romance. The story line focuses on the dichotomy of Rachel's mindset as she is a successful business woman (made it on Fortune magazine cover) but lacks confidence in love. The who-done-it with hints of a serial killer lurking and further assaults on Sara pending is deftly handled with a neat twist as Rachel investigates to protect her friend. Her inquiries into Peter and Abigail also include a delightful twist. Fans will appreciate this fine tale.

Harriet Klausner

I really wanted to love this; the premise was so good. But from page 1, it's all back story and asides. The story took a looong time to take off and then it wasn't very entertainingly written. It would have benefitted from some ruthless editing and a human doing the spell check. The typos were sloppy and inexcusable. One character "loses a tone of weight." Spell check won't catch that, but a real editor should have...the complaints keep going. Sorry, but this one's a snoozefest. Excellent for the insomniac in your life.

Where exactly do I begin? I think I have to begin by saying that I actually feel a little dumber having read this book. Honestly, I do. And I feel badly saying so because I'm sure Ms. Sturman is a very nice person, but I'm not convinced that I took anything really substantial from her most recent novel, except perhaps maybe the headache I got as I read the last few chapters on the train ride home tonight.

Now I had read The Pact, and a little less than two years ago I felt compelled to give it a five star rating. Since then, in re-reading my reviews, I've often felt that I was definitely too generous with that ranking and, certainly after reading The Jinx, I found myself seriously questioning just why I thought I enjoyed her first book so much. But I did. Rachel wasn't as annoying in The Pact, the other characters had more than a few words to say, nothing seemed quite as programmed, and the mystery was, for the most part, a mystery.

The Jinx, however, lost me practically at the beginning. I had tried once to read it, stopping just before the end of chapter one. In the last week or so, I made another attempt. And I must admit I sped through it, but not because I was excited to see what would happen; rather I needed the book to end so I could put it away and forget about it.

Rachel was incredibly annoying in this book; her flakiness and absurd thoughts made me feel sorry for her. The mystery itself might have been interesting, if I did not figure practically everything out from the beginning. And I am neither a mystery fan nor very good at figuring them out, so it's very telling that even I knew what was coming next. Granted, I did not know the final climactic moment would happen, but that didn't stop me from being sickened when it did. Every twist and turn in this book just seemed so forced and so cliche. Every little detail or character flaw was all too convenient and that's really not fair to a reader that at least hoped to be somewhat challenged in their reading.

The writing, too, wasn't as good as in her previous novel (at least not in what I can remember of it). The dialogue was very amateur, almost childish in fact, and half the time I felt it was literally taken from the "if-I-was-going-to-say-the-most-basic-thing-in-the-most-basic-way-how-would-I-do-it" dictionary. That isn't even to mention the very long pages that detailed the Sara/Tom/company background or the NY/Rachel/company background that, frankly, I could have cared less about.

I will end this review with another brief apology to Ms. Sturman because I'm sure she is a good person and her book is probably not as bad as this review is making it seem. I've certainly read much worse and turned aside many others without even finishing them. I also must say that if you happened to love this book, I'm not being critical of that; we probably just have different tastes. I'm guessing too that my expectations for this book were rather high going in and that I was bound to be let down when I realized it just couldn't live up. But I would encourage anyone that is thinking of buying this book to buy The Pact first before determining if they want to give The Jinx a try. Then, at the very least, it would be their choice in wanting to read more of Rachel's mysteries.

Ms. Sturman does it again, a truly excellent read with great twists and turns that keep you turning pages. Mysteries don't get much better than this!!!

The endearing Rachel Benjamin finds herself in another perilous situation and she navigates her high flying career with her intracoastal relationship and attemps to uncover the truth to the mysterious attack on her dear friend Sara.

Fast paced, amusing to the end, The Jinx, twists its way to a delightful conclusion. Please write on Ms. Sturman--I want more!

I read and loved `THE PACT' by Jennifer Sturman and couldn't wait to get my hands on her newest mystery featuring the always lovable and intelligent heroine Rachel Benjamin. I expected great things from Sturman's newest and `THE JINX' definitely delivered.

In Jennifer Sturman's second novel the gangs all back together, this time in Boston for their annual "roommate reunion". Rachel, while there on business vows to dedicate her weekend to her friends Hillary, Luisa, Jane and Emma while squeezing in a little time for canoodleing with her boyfriend of six months Peter. However, plans quickly change when, Sara, a client and friend of hers is attacked on the Harvard campus. The police believe the attack is related to a string of murders that have been occurring around the Boston area but Rachel thinks it may have more to do with the potential hostile takeover of Sara's company that seems to be in the works. To make matters worse it seems that Peter is spending his time canoodling with Abigail, his Christy Turlington look alike assistant rather than Rachel. Is it possible that Rachel dismissed the jinxing gods a bit too soon?

Jennifer Sturman is definitely a new talent to watch out for in chick lit mystery and Rachel Benjamin and gang are definitely a group to root for. If you haven't read `THE PACT' get it and pick up `THE JINX' too while your at it, you wont be disappointed.

this turned out to be a really good book. I enjoyed immensly, it has lots of twists and turns.

I would have to say that this is one of the better chick lit books that I have read of late. The mystery theme really helps to sustain the readers' interest and keeps the book from focusing on Rachel's self esteem issues (all too common in the genre). Overall, the book was enjoyable although not worth purchasing. Not exactly five-star material, but I could see this author getting better with time. I agree wholeheartedly with the other reviewer who mention the incessant plugging of Diet Coke & Blackberry = annoying and needless! Too much product overkill!

I read The Pact last year and was anxious to read The Jinx. Although I didn't think it was as good as The Pact, I still found it to be an entertaining read. There are twists to the plots, but I quickly figured out who the killer was and what happened with Sara. Having said that, I still recommend this book. I do hope the author will continue the series.