15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Don't Waste your Time, July 24, 2006
Generally I like series stories where the hero/heroine continues from one book to another. This was the third in this series, and I was greatly disappointed. The first book introduced the main character, and even though she was a little ditzy at times, I hoped for more excitement and less stupidity. The second book was more graphic and more action, however, the stupidity continued. But this third edition really sunk to the bottom of the cesspool. Not only is our sex-starved heroine getting mixed up with a perfect stranger, she is out running around trying to catch the bad guys. Two car accidents in one book??? Come on. The book has not been proofed, either. The main character drives an Infiniti, however at one point she gets into her BMW. In another chapter her daughter is cooking corn, but drains the peas. Still another episode has her friend supposedly dropping her off a block from her home where her car is supposed to be parked, but they sit in the driveway talking before she goes in. Her car is magically in the garage the next morning??????? And what's with the plot? I had this figured out halfway through the book. It takes the main character a long time to come up with the right information. No wonder California is a mess, if she is the best, so says her boss, then they are in deep muck, similar to what's around the lagoon.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
What?! You've got to be kidding me, July 28, 2009
This book started out with a lot of promise. A working mom with a lot on her plate, Carolyn is a likable enough gal. She's faced with seeing a Brutal Killer go free because a forensic scientist was sloppy. After that set up, the story goes straight downhill from there.
Carolyn quickly descends into "Too Stupid To Live" territory, making multiple blunders and emotional outbursts that should rightfully have gotten her maimed and killed instead of just shaken up. She endangers her family and divulges every last detail of Brutal Killer's case to Some Guy she met when she ran into his car.
Brutal Killer has some competition with Evil Twin. Evil Twin shows up about halfway through, failing to kill his wife, and has conveniently made it look like Brutal Killer has murdered women Evil Twin is good for. The best part of this book is in the form of Not Dead Wife stalking and planning to kill Evil Twin.
Through his own stupidity, Some Guy tries to chase down Brutal Killer on his own. Carolyn's friends are all jealous and doubtful about Some Guy. Carolyn gets all weird and emotional about Some Guy, when she doesn't really know much more about him than the zeros in his bank account.
In the end, this book is so hamstrung by it's own cleverness that it's a miserable read. The poor characters made it even worse. Honorable mention to the setting: No one wants to read about Oxnard and Ventura when LA and San Diego are to the south and San Francisco is to the north. There are too many neat places that people like to read about in California to have a book trapped in McMansion infested commuter country.
One last thing, who was the editor on this book? That person deserves to be fired.
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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
The Evidence is In: This book is bad, June 9, 2007
A while ago, I happened to pick up three novels by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg, all featuring probation office Carolyn Sullivan. The first two, Sullivan's Law and Sullivan's Justice were so-so books, neither good nor bad, just passable diversions. Rosenberg breaks that pattern in the third book, Sullivan's Evidence, but not for the better: this book is really bad.
Actually, the novel starts out promisingly enough, leading me to initially believe that this would be the best of the three. When the chief forensics officer for Ventura County is found guilty of tampering with evidence, many of the cases he previously handled are called into question. One man, Carl Holden, is set free from prison. Carolyn knows he is a bad man, however, not merely guilty of the single murder he was originally convicted for, but a likely serial killer. When another dead body is found near Holden's original corpse-dumping site, Carolyn is certain that Holden's the murderer. Hunches, however, are not enough, and the search for evidence will lead in unexpected directions, some of which point to Carolyn's new boyfriend.
Done correctly, this could be an interesting story, but Rosenberg has botched things up this time. First of all, Carolyn, never bright when choosing the men in her life, has now become almost criminally idiotic. In particular, she makes one dumb choice that winds up almost getting her raped and murdered by Holden; even though she escapes that, her decision will also endanger her two children. Even then, given an opportunity to get help, she ignores the chance, further risking her life (and that of a police officer); the fact that she is able to get out of this middle-of-the-book crisis will be more the result of dumb luck than anything else. I suppose if this was a comic novel, such behavior could be acceptable, but Rosenberg seems to treat Carolyn as a heroine.
But among the flaws in this book, Carolyn Sullivan's character problems seem the least significant. What's worse? For starters, the plot goes from merely complex to overly muddled. Much of the story depends on pure coincidence, most significantly with Carolyn's love interest, Marcus Wright: what are the odds that she would have an auto accident and meet a man who would just happen to be involved in the case she is helping investigate? There are plenty of other coincidences that tie together story elements that should be completely separated. Maybe worst of all, the resolution of the story depends on one of the most tired cliches in suspense fiction, which I won't disclose here (but it is such a cliché that you hardly ever see it much nowadays, since most writers realize how stale it is).
Of course, Rosenberg has enough skills to keep the story moving relatively quickly, but there is little to recommend this story. If this were a first-time novel, I might give it a generous two stars, but Rosenberg, a supposed accomplished author with nearly a dozen published books, should be better than this and gets only one star. Either she just mailed this one in or she is simply overrated. This wasn't my first Rosenberg book, but it's very likely my last. Even if you're a Rosenberg fan, you should skip this clunker and find a better writer; there are many to choose from, and once you realize there are much better authors, you're unlikely to return.
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