Customer Reviews

Murder Never Forgets (A Carla Day Mystery)

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I purchased this book because it was recommended to me by Amazon. I am usually most pleased with these books, this book is the exception. I had a difficult time getting into to the book. It took almost three months to get to the third chapter, the book was too easy to put down. I found the book to be uninteresting and too disjointed to really enjoy. The characters were poorly developed and there was too much about the past life of the main character that was not explained or else glossed over to make the book seem interesting. All in all I would not recommend this book nor will I invest in what I am sure will be a forthcoming sequel.

Carla was working at Susie's health Food Store in Santa Cruz when the Green Brach Manor Nursing Home calls to inform her that her father, a victim of Alzheimer's, had deteriorated and will have to be moved to the "no hope house" for closer managed care. Carla believes her beloved dad, once a renowned Egyptologist, would die in the stifling prison like edifice. She journeys to Berkley to be with him and while there asks for a job as an aide assisting patients with their medicine, etc if her dad can stay in the more independent facility. Administrator Mrs. Sisal hires her.

However, odd occurrences begin to happen at the Green Branch starting with a fire, meds missing, the death of an employee, tampered food, and her father blaming everything on a dead woman at the beach that is either near the home or the Pyramids. Mrs. Sisal demands that Carla, who is very popular amongst the patients, spy on them and the staff to learn who is causing the troubles if she and her father are to stay at Green Branch. Reluctantly she begins spying not realizing the danger she places herself in by doing so.

MURDER NEVER FORGETS combines an intriguing amateur sleuth tale with some Egyptologist elements inside a deep family drama. Readers get a taste of what happens at a nursing home which operates more like a hospital prison than a nurturing of our seniors facility. Thus the story line grips readers on two levels: that of the mystery and that of senior citizen health care; together they blend into a fine contemporary thriller.

Harriet Klausner

When I first read the glowing magazine and newspaper reviews of this book, I was drawn in by the idea of a mystery set in a retirement home and nursing center. But I found this a difficult book to read because there is very little dramatic tension, and the paragraphs are monotonous. I think that if the writer had developed scenes to tell the story, as opposed to telling most of it in narrative, the book would be more interesting.