Customer Reviews

Where the Bodies Are Buried (Jeri Howard Mysteries)

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

 

 

Private Investigator, Jeri Howard is out to find the real cause of her present, but just past away client, Rob Lawter. She goes undercover, travels, worked double shifts to find the answer to how Mr. Lawter died and what was the cause of it? This book is packed with gradually piled on suspense that can't exactly keep me interested. There seems to be a lack of description of the characters and the settings. Or maybe I'm just slow. It does include accurate information when it comes to describing the cities mentioned in the story, San Francisco and Oakland. Could get a higher rating, it just doesn't have what I want in a mystery novel. I would highly recommend this to San Franciscans and Oakland-ERs.

Though he gives her a retainer to hire Oakland private investigator Jeri Howard, Rob Lawter tells the sleuth to wait until he gives her more details before she begins working for him. However, he did show her a threatening note and that he planned to blow the whistle on Bates Inc., the food processing firm he works for as a paralegal. Before he can tell her what he wants her to do, Rob apparently jumps to his death form a fifth story window.

Since Jeri cashed his check, she feels she owes her now deceased client his money's worth. She takes an undercover job in the legal department of Bates where she hopes to quickly ferret out the identity of killer. Unbeknownst to the detective is what is lurking in the background, something that will turn out to be a more menacing threat to society.

WHERE THE BODIES ARE BURIED is a frightening Bay Area who-done-it because the story line reads so genuine that consumers will be leery to eat or drink anything processed; diets will boom across America. Jeri is a wonderful female sleuth and the San Francisco-Oakland area is always a pleasant place to visit. In her seventh Howard mystery, award winning author Janet Dawson has written her best novel in what is already a top quality series.

Harriet Klausner

Generally speaking, I like this Janet Dawson series, mostly because I like the Bay Area setting. Reminds me of my many years living there; Dawson does a great job of making it real again, lots of scenes she describes are exactly like I remember them. That said, this book isn't among her best. It drags -- not as easy to sustain suspense or interest when the setting is a typically drab and gray corporate office, ie, "Cube City", which proves just as boring to a reader as it was to those who worked there. Time and again, I skipped hunks of pages in the middle, as the character analysis of this corporate executive or that corporate lawyer exceeded my ability to care. I'll still be on the lookout for more in this series, though -- just hope the others will have a little more action.

There is a familiar ring to the Bates food manufacturing company. Could it be another LBO company deep in the heart of Oakland that Jeri Howard finds so familiar? An excellent book full of Bay Area flavor -- which is what draws me to Dawson's books. She's a wonderful, entertaining writer and you find yourself right beside her in the produce district sleuthing for clues.

Another in a series of Jeri Howard mysteries this one begins with the death of of a corporate legal assistant, Rob Lawter. As Jeri goes undercover to the corporate legal office where Mr. Lawter worked she finds the evidence to figure out what happened. What I was struck with was the dynamism of the departed Mr. Lawter. This dude should be the subject of a whole series of books, instead of Jeri Howard. In fact, it seemed clear that Jeri Howard considered the filing and the dictation in the legal department beneath her.

THE PLOT OR PREMISE:
Private Investigator Jeri Howard is back and she's lost a client. Rob Lawter comes to Jeri and retains her services, tells her that he'll brief her later, but then takes a header out of his apartment window -- suicide, accident or murder? Jeri investigates and takes a job as a legal secretary (her previous employment) at the company where Rob worked as a paralegal. All she has is a determination to help her now-dead client and an anonymous threatening note he received warning him about "blowing the whistle". Lots of people enter, stage left, and most of them stick around for the duration making it hard for Jeri to pin them down.

Was it one of the lawyers? Was it the corporate bigwigs who took over the company in a hostile takeover and are they going to take the company apart piece-by-piece? Was it the plant managers conspiring to hide some terrible secret? Was it the brother-in-law who is trying to convince everyone that Rob committed suicide? And what do Rob's neighbours know about what happened that night?

WHAT I LIKED:
There are no super-human powers of deduction shown here by Jeri. She is a plodder -- one piece of the puzzle at a time, turning it around and around to see if it fits anywhere. And a lot of the time, she doesn't know what to do with the pieces and doesn't try to make them fit anywhere. The writing is up to Dawson's normal first-rate level and it is particularly interesting to see how Jeri goes about her non-investigating tasks around the office. The office, and the office politics, are made real by describing Jeri's experiences -- all of them, including the rules for working the photocopier. They set the tone for the workplace and most writers would have left them out. Dawson includes them, and the story is better for having them.

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:
Jeri can be a bit of a dunce at times. Several "clues" leap off the page at the reader, but Jeri misses them, or rather, completely misses the significance -- at the time. There are a couple like that, so quite often the reader knows where the story is going when Jeri apparently doesn't, and it is only to the credit of Dawson's writing that you don't say "Hurry up and get there already."

However, at the end, Dawson doesn't play fair -- there are two "clues" that turn everything around for Jeri, the final pieces of the puzzle, and the reader doesn't get to see them until the solution is revealed. "Foul!", I cry.

THE BOTTOM LINE:
A decent mystery and the descriptions of the office raise it up a notch while the fouls at the end lower it a bit. Overall, 3.5 lilypads out of 5.00.

Other Information:
- Source: New
- Original date of review: January 2001, updated 2011
- Series: Jeri Howard
- Recommended by: Dorothy-L
- Tags: Crime, Dorothy-L, Fiction, Jeri Howard, Legal, Mystery, Police, Professional Detective, Prose