Customer Reviews

Edge of Midnight (Police Chief Susan Wren Mysteries)

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i do agre with many of the reviews on here pertaing to this particular offering But, I will buy or borrow Ms. weirs next book anyway . It's not unusual to hva e novel with high expectations and the author i'm sure would love to oblige ..however, this one is a bit too much a mix up .

I love her first book " A Cold Christmas " and found it at a yard sale ...still has a place on my bookshelves . Ms. Weir has a bright and long future in this genre as good as any of mary higgins clark or her daughter's , Carol . and yes, I have read every one of mis Weirs other books . Not all consistant but, perhaps time and practice will be a help .
I think she's worth the look .

Police chief Susan Wren is very busy in the small town of Hempstead, Kansas. She has a rookie cop who has nearly killed two of her partners by not following their instructions. The teenaged girl Susan has befriended is clearly upset but won't talk to Susan. A World War II veteran suffering of Alzheimer get a hold of a gun. Into this comes Cary Black, a woman on the run from her abusive husband, who is a cop.

I so enjoy this series and felt the last book, "Up In Smoke," was excellent. For me, this book wasn't up to the same level. There was a lot going on in this book, perhaps a bit too much. I did feel the story could have been much tighter. And yet, Ms. Weir deftly wove most the fragments together into a suspenseful plot primarily focused on abuse. The protagonist of this book, rather than being Susan, was Cary. Ms. Wren did a very good job of showing the balance of Cary's fear yet strength and determination, as well as the husband's psychosis and rationale for beating his wife. However, there were a few too many coincidences and I definitely saw the end coming. This was definitely not her best book. I do recommend Ms. Weir's books and wish she would write them faster, rather than every two-to-three years, but I should recommend starting with "Winter Widow."

I read Charlene Weir's first mystery featuring Susan Wren, Winter Widow, and was quite impressed. I was absolutely thrilled when I saw that the series had been continued. The latest istallment of Susan Wren, Edge of Midnight, was much different in tone and violence. I expected another Kansas Cozy, but the brutal rape and murder scene at the beginning of the novel was quite shocking. I wasn't expecting that. Also, as I continued reading the story of Cary Black, the abused wife, I kept thinking of the novel Sleeping with the Enemy by Nancy Price (the movie was based on this novel). In Sleeping with the Enemy, the run-away abused wife is quite similar to Cary. They both are extremely thin and don't eat much. Both wear a wig, and both settle in rural towns. But what really seemed too similar was the job that both protagonists took after coming to their new towns. In Sleeping with The Enemy, the abused wife took a job taking care of a paralyzed former professor. The professor had a teenage girl helping out who was always running to class, etc. In Edge of Midnight, Cary took a job as companion to a partially paralyzed stroke victim who was a psychiatrist. Her granddaughter needed the help and was always running off to class. On the flip side, the two characters have many different characteristics. Of course, I realize there are only so many plot variations, but the novel is not what most people remember about Sleeping with the Enemy, but the movie, which is very different. Read Sleeping with the Enemy and see the similarites. Cary was however a very sympathetic character, and the novel was her story. I would like to read a book about what becomes of her. Susan Weir was on the sidelines. I will go back and read some of the books that came between these two novels, because I believe I missed a shift in tone somewhere along the way. Overall, I was a little disappointed in this novel. Charlene Weir did bring all of her plot lines together; however, in today's modern mysteries, beware of being someone's helpful, best friend.

In Hampstead, Kansas, Police Chief Susan Wren, battling the flu, reads the riot act to new cop Ida Rather, who disobeyed a direct order and almost seriously injured another police officer. At about the same time that Susan admonishes Ida, in El Cerrito, California attorney Arlette persuades battered Cary Black to flee her abusive spouse Mitch a cop, at a time when his professed beloved is going blind. Arlette arranges for Cary to hide in the home of a friend Kelby Oliver in Hampstead.

Upon arriving in Hampstead, Cary finds Kelby is missing. Fearing the beating of her life for running away, Cary moves into Kelby's home and begins to become the woman even obtaining work under her new identity as a caretaker for a stroke sufferer and gets a library card in order to borrow books. However, unbeknownst to Cary, Kelby is in hiding after death threats from thugs because of her position as she sits on a jury in which the prosecution seeks the death penalty for a brutal rape-murder. Soon everything will converge on the frightened rabbit who obviously picked the wrong identity to hide behind.

Two things freshen up the seventh Chief Wren tale: first she is not the prime player, but serves more in a support role and second Mitch's extreme behavior between abuse and love seems genuine. The story line is action-packed from the moment that Cary flees for the Plains only to jump "Out of the frying pan, into the fire". What is fascinatingly is that it is enthusiastic disobedient Ida rather than Susan who plays the prime investigative role. Charlene Weir keeps readers' attention as they wonder whether Mitch will get to Cary before the thugs get to her as Kelby.

Harriet Klausner