Customer Reviews

Moonblind: A Gail McCarthy Mystery (Gail McCarthy Mysteries)

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

 

 

I agree totally with Karen Kimmerly's review. If I wanted to read a book on being pregnant, I would have bought one. All Gail's communing with her unborn child became boring and nauseating. (And, yes, I'm a mother and certainly have no problem with someone being pregnant.) I read Laura Crum because she is one of the very best horse mystery writers I've ever read. This book didn't even get into anything about horses and/or a mystery until shortly after page 100. It just dragged on. And on. It was also a very depressing book. Animals dying. Animals being sick. Animals having incurable problems. And the dead mare and foal were completely unnecessary to the story - except, of course, to tie into Gail's pregnancy.

Basically, in case you haven't figured it out yet, I found this to be a very poor example of a tremendously talented writer. Please, Laura Crum, don't make your next book all about motherhood and Baby Mac. Please get back to horses and that wonderful, multi-dimensional character, Dr. Gail McCarthy. Please.

I stopped reading the Gail McCarthy mysteries with this book. It was, if you pardon the pun, LAME. Far more about pregnancy than mystery or even horses. I assumed this book was written while Ms. Crum was pregnant and this was her version of a 'craving'.

It was especially disappointing because Ms Crum is so much better than this. I will attempt reading the next installment (2 years after it came out) to see if the author has regained her stride.

Gail McCarthy is hugely pregnant, and no longer a practicing vet. It shows, there is little to say about Moonblindness as a horse ailment everything is constantly focused on Gail's gravid belly and swollen ankles. In previous books the reader is treated to an excellent view into the horse world and ownership. In this book you are treated to constant reminders of the pregnancy of Gail. If you are looking for the usual mix of vet anecdotes, knowledge and murder mystery, this book isn't it. Sorry to say this but pregnancy and murders don't mix. Now if the book had been titled "Pregnant and helping to solve a mystery," it would have been less deceiving than to call it a Gail McCarthy vet mystery.

As usual Gail writes a good story. This time the vets pregnancy is prominent in the picture and the story is more personal then usual but nevertheless the describtions are vivid, the story and its development is clearly written. This time the solution is Agatha Christy like but who cares.

I've been a fan of Laura Crum's Gail McCarthy from the start. Her book is fresh and exciting. Crum has a way of making the slightest bump in the night cause a trickle of fear to travel down the readers spine. All of Ms Crum's books are well worth reading. Moonblind won't disappoint.

Book was well written and moved along nicely. I was impressed with how well the author researced the medical terms and conditions.

I've given all of the previous Gail McCarthy mysteries five stars. It pains me to give this one only two, but that's what it deserves.

Usually I read these in one sitting, but by about page 70 I was wondering if I really wanted to finish it. Interestingly, that's about the point where Gail asks herself if she was "losing the person she had been". The answer is a resounding yes - in this book Gail is a self-absorbed one-dimensional, even boring, character. In fact, Gail is not even the main character in the story - her pregnancy is. It became a game as I read to see if there would be any pages that didn't mention the pregnancy. There were a few, but not many. This is supposed to be a mystery, not chicklit!

I would imagine that many of Crum's readers are horsepeople who are starved for good adult horse-related fiction, especially of the Western variety. They will be disappointed as the horses play a very marginal role; almost as if they were no longer part of Gail's life. There is also very little mystery here - the "event" doesn't happen until nearly two-thirds of the way through and it's pretty clear whodunit. The book is 90% pregnancy, 5% horses and 5% plot.

All that being said, given the fact that all of the rest of the books in this series are so good I really believe that this one is just a blip and the author is perfectly capable of pulling out of the slump. She just needs to let Gail get back to the things she's best at - practicing equine veterinary medicine and solving mysteries.