10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another Stevens Southern gothic tale of murder and madness, August 24, 2009
This review is from: The Whispering Room (Mass Market Paperback)
Stevens has entered the realm of very few authors in my world. With this book she has become one of the few authors that I would probably read anything by, regardless of what it was. After reading "The Devil's Footprints", when "The Whispering Room" was published I immediately bought it, a rare occurrence, and then read it almost as soon as I bought it, an even rarer occurrence.
In July of 1976, Nella Prather bothered by a lack of communication from her cousin Mary Alice, decides to make an unannounced visit to Mary Alice's house. Mary Alice is a homeschooling single mother of five since her oppressive husband recently left her, and Nella finds the house strangely quiet when she arrives. As Nella searches the house she finds that Mary Alice and her boys are gone, disappeared, what's left are the three daughters, one just a newborn. Then the two oldest girls disappear leaving Nella with just the baby.
In the present, widow and single mother Detective Evangeline Theroux finds that she has to be harder and tougher than most of the other police officers because she has to deal with the sexism and the prejudice of her "fellow" New Orleans police officers, and with living up to the reputation of her late husband. Theroux is called to a murder scene in which a mob lawyer has been murdered and then dumped in an abandoned house. She is then told that the lawyer was murdered by multiple bites of poisonous snakes, snakes being what Theroux has a pathological hatred of.
As she and her partner are investigating the murder, the FBI shows up, and one of the agents is Special Agent Declan Nash who is meeting Theroux for the first time. Nash has had a history with Johnny, her late husband, and he intends to put her in her place and get her kicked off the case. Pronto.
Meanwhile, at the Pinehurst Manor psychiatric hospital Mary Alice Lemay is a resident, and she has been a resident of various psychiatric institutions for the last thirty years. She has spent most of those years alone and silent, now one of her angels has come to visit her, and she's brought a very special someone with her. This special someone is Ellis Cooper, snakehandler, religious fanatic, and ex-mental patient, and there is a plan being put into action, and that plan is to get the Lemay family back together again. ALL of the family. At all costs.
Stevens seems to be specializing in trouble heroines. Sarah DeLaune was one in "The Devil's Footprints" and Evangeline Theroux, who is struggling in her private life, and has to keep up a front in her professional one, is another. All this while it becomes more and more obvious that the murders and crimes are centered around her. It would seem that it couldn't get worse, only it can as she finds out some things about her past that she didn't know, and that she doesn't like. Evangeline is a woman with real problems; she's a single mom, a recent widow, has no respect among her New Orleans peers, Nash is squeezing her, her sister is an ex-con and is involved in SOMETHING, there is some terrible secret about her family, and somebody is killing people from her past. Hell, this isn't even a country song, this is an opera! And yet, in the end Stevens has a knack of creating realistic characters that should be the envy of other more successful or well-known thriller writers.
Hyperbole alert. I weep for those who have not read this novel, or who have read it and didn't find it a four or five star book, for you are hopeless. This novel may be a bit convoluted, but that's okay, I read novels for the imaginative content, and Stevens can tell quite a yarn. Now if only she would write a real supernatural thriller.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Distinctive and Entertaining, January 7, 2011
Amanda Stevens is now on my list of writers to watch for. The Whispering Room has a sympathetic protagonist in Evangeline and interesting supporting characters. The story is wonderfully embellished with descriptions of the lush surroundings, putting you right in the story. A really big thing for me personally was that I could never guess what was coming.
A believable heroine, a suspenseful story in a wonderful setting--what more could a reader want? I highly recommend this book. Now, I'm off to find another one by Ms. Stevens.
Pat Gragg
The Rose Killer
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