Customer Reviews

Kidnapped: An Irene Kelly Novel (Irene Kelly Mysteries)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Life's short and there are so many good books that if a story doesn't grab me by the first chapter, it's just put aside. Edgar Award winning author Burke didn't need a chapter - just two pages - actually opening lines:

"Cleo Smith firmly believed that neatness counted, especially if you were going to get away with murder. Which was why she now stood completely naked, save for a pair of plastic booties and a pair of thin rubber gloves, in the office of the man she had just killed."

With "Kidnapped," her tenth suspense novel, Jan Burke has outdone herself. After the murder and any telltale traces of evidence have been removed, the story flashes back to the fictional California town of Las Piernas and the Fletchers, outstanding citizens all. They're a large family, powerful, led by patriarch Graydon Fletcher after whom an exclusive private school has been named. He seems to be a model citizen, so concerned for the care of the young that he and his wife have adopted 21 children in all.

However, every family has one they call a black sheep and, in the Fletcher's case, it would be Richard, an artist. He doesn't buy into the pattern drawn for the whole family and refuses to let his children tow the patriarchal line. Death comes too soon to him - he's found murdered in his studio. His three-year-old daughter, Jenny is missing as is his stepson, Mason. It only takes hours for the police to locate Mason as he has trashed his car in the San Bernardino mountains. With the murder weapon found in his car, Mason is convicted of killing his stepfather, Richard, and little Jenny.

Only Caleb, his older brother believes he is innocent. Five years later Caleb is working in forensic science, and has been sent to study recently found remains - a puzzler as the deceased is supposedly hiding somewhere with the son he kidnapped several years ago. At about this same time reporter Irene Kelly has written an article about the number of child snatchings by relatives in Las Piernas, and she is sent to the site where Caleb is working.

As it happens there is also new evidence about Jenny's disappearance. Someone will stop at nothing to make sure that Kelly and Caleb never discover the truth.

Those who enjoy their mysteries with plot twists and dashes of forensic science will sit up all night turning the pages of "Kidnapped."

- Gail Cooke

Las Peirnas Express reporter and her Police Detective husband Frank Harriman return in the newest installment in this excellent series. The story opens with the murder of graphic artist Richard Fletcher, and the disappearance of his young daughter Jenny. Richard is part of the famous Fletcher family, but has distanced himself from the cult-like influences of his family. To make matters even more tragic for Richard's wife, Elisa, her son Mason was found drunk and incoherent with the murder weapon and bloody clothing in his car.

Five years later, Jenny is still missing. Mason is in jail and their brother Caleb is a graduate student studying with forensic anthropologist Ben Sheridan who works with the police department. Caleb has always believed that Jenny was alive and that Caleb was innocent. Irene Kelly enters the scene when she does a story on missing children. When she fills in for another reporter at crime scene where human remains are found, she stumbles upon a connection to the infamous Fletcher family. After that connection is made, Irene is committed to helping Caleb find out what really happened five years earlier.

Often in a continuing series it is prudent to read some of the earlier books to get a feel for the characters and their continuing storylines. It might be helpful with this book, but not necessary at all. Even though, I have read the other books in the series I was a little lost at why Ethan was living with Irene and Frank. I still didn't know at the end of the book, but it really made no difference to my enjoyment of the story, and enjoy it I did. I had trouble putting this one down. It was well-paced with on-going, intricately-plotted suspense which made me want to turn the pages faster and faster. Irene and Frank are well-rounded sympathetic characters. The secondary cast was interesting and well-developed. There were characters to love and characters to hate. Highly recommended.

Reporter Irene Burke does an article on kidnapped children that ties her into a 5-year-old murder of Robert Fletcher, for which one son is imprisoned, the daughter missing and the remaining son working with forensic anthropologist Ben Sheridan. Robert Fletcher's father believed in adopting and fostering children, home schooling them before enrolling them in the prestigious Fletcher Academy.

Jan Burke is an author whose work I normally love, but this missed the mark for me. There was an assumption you had read the previous books of the series so character development was thin at best. The only characters who were truly distinctive and interesting were two young girls. There where so many characters, it was very difficult to keep track of them. Missing children is such an important issue yet the plot was implausible, convoluted in the extreme. The motive was weak and the ending was improbable at best. However, as the story progressed, the forensic information was very interesting, as was that about working with search dogs. There was some excellent, gripping suspense. The book wasn't such that I won't read more of Ms. Burke. But, for me, this was definitely not her best work.

I have loved Jan Burke since the first Irene Kelly novel. I was lucky enough to meet her, and she was so, so kind to me..I'd been recently widowed, and her book caught my interest then...they still do now. This one will be complete tonight! I lost sleep last night...it was that compelling. I have laughed at parts and cried at some. I would highly recommend this book.

The first scene hooked me, I'll admit that. But it was more like the set-up to an action movie about a nearly superhuman villain and the cult of X-Men like victims she springs from than a crime story about real human beings.

I finished Kidnapped, because the plot and one character (the kidnapped child of the title) were really compelling.

But the novel made me dissatisfied.

Jan Burke's first Irene Kelly novels were tremendous, because they were first-person detective stories set against a background of a social problem, like homelessness. They were stories from the Macdonald-Muller-Pronzini school, where the police and authorities aren't always the "heroes" they want us to believe, where normal people are driven to rescue someone or find the truth about something bad that's happened because they're forced to by their own sense of morality.

But in Kidnapped, a couple of things (which I've noticed in more and more detective stories lately, including Bill Pronzini's last couple) kept getting in my way of enjoying the story.

I haven't counted the pages, but it seems like less than half the book is devoted to Irene Kelly telling her story. The novel bounces from first-person to third-person description of various characters, some believable, some cartoonish.

Of course formulas aren't to be followed for their own sakes, but this kind of story is supposed to have a structure - - the hero (private eye, reporter, victim's relative, whatever) has to find out what really happened to someone and usually discovers that she has to rescue that someone or someone else.

But the frequent perspective shifts in this book interrupt the drive to the climax. As the novel ends, what would be extremely dramatic events go almost unnoticed because we've switched to the perspective of a character who isn't aware of their significance. (For instance, our main hero Irene sees a murderer kill an important accomplice, but since Irene isn't aware of their relationship the killing barely registers.) These changes of perspective deflate suspense throughout the novel - - we see so much happen that we're almost always ahead of Irene.

One of the reasons I like first-person detective stories is getting inside someone's head - - if the hero of the story isn't exactly the author, it's a version of the author, and we learn about what's important to another human being. (And in the last couple of decades stories by women crime writers like Sarah Paretsky and most Jan Burke books have been a lot more believable than the adolescent power fantasies of guys like Robert Crais.)

Leave the ninja assassins to Quentin Tarantino.

I'm 3/4 through the book and I'm still trying to figure out all the plots and storylines. Too many main characters, and too many stories to follow. What I thought was the primary story ("kidnapped") is still yet to be touched upon - yes, a child disappeared but has been presumed dead.

This is the first book I've read by Jan Burke, so maybe I'd be more comfortable with it if I were familiar with the style of writing. I'll finish reading it, just to see if any of it makes sense at the end, but I may not read this author again. I was taking a break from James Patterson, but now I think that was a mistake.

This was my first book by Jan Burke. I bought it to read as an airplane book, and it served that purpose admirably. On the good side, Irene Kelly is a sympathetic detective figure-- I liked her a lot, despite the fact that the book leaned heavily on knowing her background already. There's also some really decent writing going on here-- so that's promising for the future.

On the less good side-- Kidnapped doesn't know if it wants to be a thriller or a mystery. Although it has a lot of the earmarks of a cozy (semi professional detective, adorable dogs, small town eccentric characters) there is no mystery for the reader-- and it is more the detective who is plotted against the set-up which we already know. This isn't a bad thing, necessarily, but I found it a little bit unsatisfying in this case.

The aspect that made me really hesitate had to do with the motivation of the bad guys. It's rather a big set-up with motivations in the Fletcher family that are really rather murky to me. The motivations, as presented, were quite unsatisfying-- with a nod to the structural issue in the paragraph before this one, it seemed to me as though we didn't know if we had a consiparacy or a whodunnit-- and neither did the characters themselves.

I'll keep an eye out for more Burke, but I have the idea that this was not a good place to begin.

I'm a Jan Burke/Irene Kelly fan, and I readily admit to a willingness to overlook some things that are a bit of a stretch - like the fact that the benevolent founder of this incredibly wealthy and intelligent family was unaware of its dark underside. In spite of that, Ms. Burke does her usual great job of developing characters and keeping you on the edge of your seat. There is plenty of substance, a tight plot, good investigating, and lots of human frailty. Jan Burke is a great story teller.

Burke scores again with this strange and suspenseful novel about a cultish family of wealth who have disowned another family member convicted of murder. If you have not discovered Irene Kelly you have missed a treat.

Five years ago Richard Fletcher was murdered, his head bashed in to disguise a bullet wound and his daughter Jenny disappeared. Jenny's brother Mason was found in the desert with drugs in his system and the murder weapon and bloody clothes in the back of his car. He was tried and convicted for the murder of his father and the kidnapping of Jenny. He was given life without parole but his brother Caleb believes his sibling is innocent. His mother remarries Richard's brother Nelson who has loved her for a lifetime.

In the present Las Piernas News Express reporter Irene Kelley has written a story on missing children. She receives a multitude of calls from grieving parents including a heartbreaking one from Blade Ives who was married to former Express reporter Bonnie Crews. She also covers the story of a body being found by a cadaver dog belong to Sheila Polson, another Fletcher. When Irene visits Sheila at her home, she finds her murdered and sees a car driving away. As Irene tries to connect the dots that link the murders of Shelia and Richard, Jenny's disappearance and the buried body her life is in danger from someone who will kill to keep certain secrets buried.

Anytime Jan Burke writes an Irene Kelly mystery it is a time for rejoicing. Ms. Burk's novels continual back and forth moves from the third person point of view to the first and should be jolting but instead seems effortless as readers don't notice due in part to the author's creative style. Great characterizations unexpected twists and plenty of surprises pull the audience deep into the storyline and keep them there until they finish the book. Kidnapped is a fascinating work, deserving of an Edgar nomination.

Harriet Klausner