Customer Reviews

Mr. Murder (Sally Harrington Novels)

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

 

 

The latest Sally Harrington novel is the best yet. The plot races from thrills to laugh out loud moments and back again.
Sally seems settled in her new job with DBS news until
the bodies start to pile up and Sally is a target of the killer.
The secondary cast is key and it is great to revisit
with well loved characters from past novels.
I can't wait for Sally's next adventure

Drama just seems to follow Sally Harrington everywhere she goes. No matter how she tries to avoid trouble, trouble finds her. Now the Mafia trial mess is behind her, she hopes. She has a relationship building with Paul Fitzwilliam, the police officer who followed her from California to the east, she hopes. There is still some unfinished business with David Waring that she will have to deal with later, she hopes not. And she is starting a new job with the DBS Network as a co-anchor of a morning show "DBS News America This Morning".

Then the feds show up. One of Sally's former bosses is beaten severely and left for dead on the doorstep of Sally's Connecticut home. The police believe it to be somehow linked to the recent death of a millionaire that Sally has JUST finished interviewing. Since Sally is connected to both events, even though she could not possibly have anything to do with it herself, the police plan to keep close tabs.

**** For those of us who watch the news, it all seems so easy. As long as you are presentable, in whatever way the Public currently considers "presentable", can enunciate well, and not let your personal feelings show on your face as you read distressing news, then being an anchor or reporter on TV is a glamorous job. Well, the Sally Harrington novels shows how difficult it really is. The author, Laura Van Wormer, clearly shows what goes on off the camera. (She certainly convinced me not to ever enter the field.) The author takes this difficult, hard hitting setting and adds in some dark, vindictive people. Then the main character, Sally, is surrounded by a variety of characters that differ from each other in every way, shape, and form. It all keeps the pace flowing at a steady clip while the reader takes it all in with ease. Expect some interesting tid bits from the secondary characters. A terrific read! ****

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.

Sally Harrington starts her new job as the host of "DBS News America This Morning" at the same time her hometown paper Castleford, Connecticut's Daily Herald rips her up apparently because the editor is angry with her mother. However that is nothing compared to finding the corpse of Wilson Delafield, torched to death in his garden shed probably because the ace reporter exposed him as an animal arsonist. That follows up with the author of the nasty editorial beaten to death and left on the doorstep of Sally's Connecticut house. The police know Sally is the link between the two homicides, but how is impossible to fathom.

Meanwhile Sally struggles in her personal life too. She enjoys her quality time with the much younger former California cop Paul Fitzwilliam. However at an affiliate convention, her other lover attorney David Waring arrives along with someone who plans to kill Sally.

The key that keeps the Harrington tales fresh is the support cast; whether they are recurring or new, each is unique and brings fascinating perspectives to the story line. The villain is a mean individual seeking vengeance while Sally's lovers are as competitive towards her as ever. However Sally remains the center as her career continues to take off with a lot of homicides in her wake. Fans of the series will enjoy Laura Van Wormer's latest thriller.

Harriet Klausner

I enjoy this series because I love the author's writing style and what she's done with the characters to move them along. However, this is the second straight installment where I've been left wondering why she bothered writing a book which it seemed could've been condensed and added on to the previous installment.

There was supposed to be a mystery here, but it seemed to get lost in the shuffle of Sally's love life and the affiliate conferences, leaving me wondering why I was reading a mystery that didn't seem very mysterious.

I also wish we could see some imperfection out of Sally, Alexandra, Will, etc. -- it seems the whole cast of characters are really far too perfect.

I love Sally's adventures.
Van Wormer always writes wonderful characters.
The mystery in this one wasn't her sharpest.
I read her work for the richly drawn characters and
locales.
The news business is always written with great detail.
These scenes especially are always exhilarating.

Mr. Murder has one element that I was very happy about.
Two characters get together that I have been waiting a long time for. I was elated! Luckily for me it has only been a year of waiting. I found Van Wormer's books a year ago. Others may have been waiting since 89!
If you are new to Laura Van Wormer, I suggest you go back and start at Riverside Drive and read all her books featuring Cassy and Alexandra and Jessica and the indefatigable Sally in chronological order.
It is a thoroughly enjoyable series.

I love the Sally Harrington novels and I'm so glad that she finally found the love of her life. You can understand her life because we all face alot of this in our own lives.
I was disappointed in the Cassy, Alexandra, Jackson love triangle. None of the other books put Jackson in a bad light and a person can change. I think that Van Wormer put a bad light on Jackson to make everything else seem right.Yes, before he married Cassy, he was quite the playboy--but he seemed to really love Cassy & she loved him in the previous books.
I enjoyed the book but hated what happened to Jackson.

Sally Harrington is ready to launch her own show--a morning network newscast. First, though, the network needs to get reluctant affiliate channels to sign up--which means both replacing their own local programming and losing a portion of the advertising dollars associated with doing their own programming. Fortunately, Sally is practically perfect. Not only does she put together the handouts and goodies for the upcoming network affiliate party, she also manages the video productions that highlight all of the DBS News segments--including her own and that of her mentor, Alexandra.

Unfortunately, DBS has some deeper issues. One of these is the loss of the long-time star of their news magazine. Sally had been tapped as a replacement, but prefered to do her own show and now the ratings are plunging. Could News actuallyl lose this segment to Sports? Sally will need to use all of her people skills to come up with a creative solution to this challenge.

At the same time, someone is killing or near-killing anyone who's offended Sally. Fortunately, the police rally around her so she isn't a suspect. Still, it is unpleasant--as are the mysterious white roses that show up every time one of her old enemies is done in. Then there's Sally's love-life crisis. Her younger cop-boyfriend is crazy about her, but she just can't see a future with him. The lawyer she's really crazy about is married to someone else, which causes problems for Sally.

Author Laura Van Wormer does an incredible job making the all-too-perfect Sally Harrington sympathetic. All of the network details are vividly described and it's fascinating to see Sally work her way through both the political and the news crises that crop up as she continues to do her job. Unfortunately, the mystery and thriller part of the story are not given the same detailed attention. Instead, they feel as if Van Wormer got caught up in the soap-opera life of her protagonist and suddenly remembered that she was writing a mystery.

Despite the sketchy nature of the mystery and the annoying fact of Sally's over-perfection, MR. MURDER is enjoyable to read. With those story flaws, the quality of the writing really came to the rescue.

I ordered this book because it was set in Connecticut, and I enjoyed that part. It seemed that it took a long time to get anywhere in this book. Eventhough Sally is the focus of the murders, you just really don't care very much.

Sally Harrington is given a newscast of her own, and her romantic woes are fairly well settled, though not quite. Then, the bodies start to fall. She is the last person to interview a millionaire before he is killed; a corpse turns up at Sally's Connecticut home, and things get very dangerous all around. The police find a connection between the deaths, and there is a real chance that Sally herself is at risk. It will be a race against time to save her from a killer with a deadly agenda.

*** Fans of the series may enjoy this; however, coming into it cold, there will be times new readers have say what moments. There are some very disturbing moments scattered throughout the book, and the "heroes" often seem less than heroic. However, it is a puzzling mystery to solve. ***

Amanda Killgore, Freelance Reviewer