Customer Reviews

Sympathy Between Humans

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

 

 

I couldn't put this book down once I started reading it. The characters are so real and the story moves gracefully but quickly around all sorts of corners.

I enjoyed Jodi Compton's debut, The 37th Hour, but it was a long time ago and I had managed to forget most of it, but we are quickly brought up to speed with this follow on. Having said that, it is better to read them in sequence.

This one again features detective Sarah Pribek, still suffering from the aftermath of the events in the previous book, and still under suspicion for the murder of the bad guy in that book. There are two additional story lines, one about a barred doctor and the other about a missing teenager. But this is no traditional detective story, this is more a story about people and the fact that the main character is a detective is just a way to introduce us to the range of characters in the story.

Here we have a woman who has crossed the line and it haunts her and her dealings with other people, there is no great 'reveal' of a mystery, more a story that gradually unfolds, but the writing is such that you are pulled into all the characters and really care what happens to them.

Hard to categorise this one, but a satisfying read. Been a long time since this was published, but I hope a third Sarah Pribek story is on it's way.

I read this book before the 37th Hour and thought, "Oh, no. I needed to read the first book to understand the story of why her husband, Shiloh, is in prison and 'Shorty's' story and subsequent murder."

Too much detail (about any and every thing) interferred with the basic plot line. And all those flashbacks to the night of Shorty's murder and why Sarah was protecting the real murderer made ME paranoid. I can understand Sarah' jitters.

And, I don't think a cop in trouble with her own dept. and under suspicion of murder would further jeopardize her career by becoming intimately involved with a suspect that her Lt. wants her to investigate, do you?

I gave the book 3 stars because this is the author's 2nd book. Compton had time and the learning experience to address: 1) too many details on plot, subplots, and characters 2) better cohesion of stories within the story. Cut 1/3 and you'd have a 4 star book because I really did like the protagonist, Sarah.

Like the first book that this continues from, it can be slow moving at times, but captivating as the author probes deeper into the characters' pasts and weaves the subplots into the main story. It is surprising, the direction this book takes when a dedicated cop who is also a dedicated wife...enough to find her missing husband in the first book, totally ignores him in this book, despite his mistake which sent him to jail for auto theft, though he backed out of being a vigilante killer. That and a surprising past love affair that would not currently be socially acceptabe may not be enough to destroy some couples, but Sarah, not surprisingly, returns to her past life of sexual immorality and alcohol when the chips are down. Typical of our culture where multiple sexual partners before marriage make it less unthinkable to have an affair after marriage. Sarah becomes a less likable character, also, when she, despite her authority as a police officer, illegally introduces a sheltered 17 year old girl to alcohol, and even suggests that "jello shots" are as an important part of the college experience as academia! With that said, I find the characters to be real and can personally relate to them or at least empathize with their faults. A good commentary on the double standards of liberal America, misunderstandings about and the hypocracy of conservative America. Perhaps future anthropoligists would gain insight on our societies inevitble quickening colapse by reading our fictional works such as this one.