Customer Reviews

Steal Away

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The defining moment in Teri Blake Addison's life came when she was fourteen years old and her mother went out to do grocery shopping. She never came home and the police thought she was abducted because her car was found in the grocery parking lot. Several years later Tori becomes a police officer and then a private detective specializing in missing person cases. At age of thirty-eight she married the love of her life, widower Jack Addison, an English professor and fellow Christian.

Her latest client is world famous televangelist and foremost Christian apologist Dr. Carl Houseman who founded the rich congregation Houseman Ministries. He is getting married again five years after his wife was killed in a boating accident but before he puts an end to that period in his life he wants Teri to find out his wife's state of mind in her last days. Teri's investigation takes an unexpected turn when she comes upon a reclusive living on Grand Maran Island living with her twenty something mentally challenged daughter.

This novel will STEAL AWAY the reader from the ordinary world and transport them into the pages of this fascinating tale of portrayal, redemption and second chances. Without getting preachy, this mystery within a mystery focuses on the premise no sin is too big to be unforgivable if the person genuinely regrets what they have done (difficult to accept for many people). The protagonist is a likable person who does her job without alienating others and has such an honest personality that people open up to her. This is the first installment in what looks like a good mystery series.

Harriet Klausner

If you're looking for a mystery that you won't be able to put down, read Steal Away! Linda Hall's best book yet. This novel is complex, compelling, and the story is intricately woven into the lives of the exceptional characters Ms. Hall has created. The mystery will grab you and keep you guessing until the very satisfactory ending. Personalities spring to life throughout this book, each of them with their own set of problems and secrets, which build the escalating mystery to a fine pitch. This is the best book I've read in years. I can't wait for Ms. Hall's next book.

This was a great mystery. The author did a great job in presenting a mystery with so many questions to be answered. What happened to Ellen? Was she alive? Who was the mysterious Garda and her daughter. Why was Ellen so unhappy? And mixed in with the main story was Teri, the PI who was trying to solve the mystery for Ellen's husband Carl. She is struggling to fit in with the church, as well as struggling with the ghost of her husband, Jack's 1st wife.

The book not only presented a great mystery of betrayal and deception, but demonstrated the theme of grace and forgiveness. The book showed that no matter how far you stray from God, forgiveness is always there, no matter how "big" the sin is.

I do think that some things were rushed towards the end. What happened to Jimmy Jarvis? There was some speculation, but nothing was really resolved. Maybe that is just one of those things that will leave the readers guessing. Also, what happened to Audrey towards the end?

I would have liked to see the marriage between Teri and Jack explored more. I know that Teri felt that she was competing with the ghost of Jack's first wife. Maybe this will be explored in future books in the series.

Again, a great mystery book! I look forward to reading Chat Room.

Linda Hall's books are so fun to read. I have enjoyed all of them.

If you like suspense and you miss the good clean mystery reads you will love Linda Hall's books, all of them.

Steal Away is an intriguing story about guilt and the web of lies and hurt it can produce.
Teri the PI really comes to life. The conflicts in her church were nicely weaved in and were very real.
It's a story about controling people causing a lot of saddness and hurt.
I appreciate the fact that Linda does not preach in her books. She does what she does best and that is write a good mystery.

I don't usually like Christian fiction because it's often poorly written and the characters are shallow. A friend lent me this book, and frankly, I couldn't put it down. I stayed up until the early hours of the morning reading it. The story is believable and engaging, the characters have depth and are complicated like people in real life, and the religious aspects of the story are very natural--not simply tacked on. The implied criticism of the judgementalism of some Christians is also well done. I'm ordering the next book in the series and hope Linda Hall will write more soon! Thanks for a good read!

This was such a fun book to read! I was hooked from the first line. I like the fact that Ms. Hall uses some actual locations in her stories. This was a great mystery story and I'm looking forward to the next book of the series.

I LOVED IT!!! I am so happy to have found Linda Hall...I couldn't put this book down...It has been years since that has happened to me...All the emotions ... Love, Greed, Betrayal - PLUS - Spirituality & Redemption...

Like all of Linda Hall's mysteries, Steal Away is a wonderful story penned along uncharted territories of new and unknown paths that are trodden with intrigue and suspense-a weaving of twists and turns that nearly make you dizzy...nearly. Steal Away is peopled with believable personalities which communicate the complexities of life: love, guilt, shame, pain and sorrow, regrets, greed, betrayal, compassion and joy. Clues are dropped thoughtfully throughout the story. Thanks for a great read Linda, I look forward to the next installment!

This is a four-and-a-half star book. If only we could give half stars in our reviews!

This is a fine book. I don't use that term lightly either. I enjoyed it thoroughly. The characters are very well-drawn and realistic. I don't read much "Christian fiction" for this exact reason -- the characters are so often written in black and white. The good characters, often those who attend church regularly, are too good to be believed. The bad ones -- the ones who have left the church or have never been near one -- are capital B Bad. Not in "Steal Away." Here shades of grey abound. You know, just as in real life. Linda Hall also has a terrific ear for dialogue. Her characters sound like people talking, not like talking heads with their strings being pulled from off-stage.

The central mystery of the book was intriguing. I occasionally write mysteries and I read a lot of them, so I figured out much of this mystery before the reveal. But I didn't mind because I still felt that I was riding along with Teri to the end.

Are there negatives? A few, a very few. Structurally, I felt the book was strong up till the end. I wanted a more thorough resolution for the youngest son, Brent. He'd been followed as a POV character through much of the book and I felt he got rather short shrift in the end. Also I freely admit that I am far more observant of punctuation, spelling, grammar and such than the average reader. It comes from years as a copy editor. So I noticed the missing commas and the occasional it's which should have been its. That sort of thing. Did the things I've mentioned in this paragraph dampen my enthusiasm for this book? Not very much. I have given this book only four stars. As I said, I have given it four-and-a-half in my heart.

It was hard for me to put this book down; I absolutely loved it. Here's a terrfic mystery without any violence portrayed and a perfect balance of intriguing story line with a little Christian theology--but no sermonizing. The search for a missing person always captures my attention and the main character herself, the PI, does an excellent job of following through with her hunches. The Atlantic seacoast setting was intriguing with just enough descriptive details to bring the book to life. Indeed, this was a perfect book!