Customer Reviews

Woman Justice

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

 

 

I was deeply disappointed in this book, the more so because I had read good reviews and looked forward to it for some time. The writing style put me off almost at once - I found it overblown, fanciful and sometimes bizarre, detracting from the story itself. Emily's eyes were forever being "abducted", or her soul "infested", while the constant use of words in inappropriate contexts (such as "she pelted" for "she said") was just plain annoying. The similes were exaggerated and frequently cringe-making ("Her father's face went ashen - like a slab of animal fat left on the floor in the back", "Emily swirled the one o'clock coffee in her mouth like a sewer drain in mid shower") and so frequent that they became intrusive and irritating. Sometimes it's ok just to swill the coffee without it being "like" anything, let alone a sewer.

I couldn't bring myself to like a single one of these characters, never mind care about their love lives. Laura was angry and controlling, Emily a needy hysteric, Milicent a petulant child, and Olivia a sycophant. I saw no love here, just women trying to manipulate other women. The sex scenes overall weren't badly written but without the emotional involvement they did nothing for me. A few phrases were badly overused ("her luscious pool") and some made me want to burst into hysterical laughter ("her pelvis screamed upwards").

As for the detective story part of it, well maybe I just missed a lot of clues, but I'm a big fan of detective stories and can usually pick one that works. This one simply didn't. There were too many facts that didn't appear until late in the book, and too much overall that remained unexplained. The last chapter made no sense at all to me, and Wraight seemed to want Milicent to be both real and not real. Milicent's convenient appearances and disappearances, the fact that no one else could see her and that Emily couldn't touch her at first, didn't jibe with the ending.

Lastly, Ms Wraight is obviously an unrepentant smoker which is great for her, but not everyone in this day and age finds smoking sexy, and I'm sure a few readers besides myself will find the constant cigarette references very off-putting.

I'm glad others have enjoyed this book, but not my style at all. It was saved from one star by some of the short stories within the main story. To my mind, the short story format suits Ms Wraight's writing technique far better than the full length novel.

Woman Justice is not only a mystery that keeps you wondering about "who done it" right up until the end, it keeps you wondering exactly what kind of book it is.

The story begins with the discovery of a pile of bones and Detective Laura McCallister has a mystery to solve. Whose are they and how did they get there? The story of the young man who reports finding them doesn't make sense and she's going to find out why. Laura is an old style detective, a fan of Agatha Christie, and she won't be fooled by false leads. The scene then shifts to the home of Emily Decker, a famous writer of mystery novels who has hit a block. No matter what she does Emily cannot find the words for her next novel; then she begins to wonder if she's losing her mind when she receives a visitation from one of her characters. Milicent Baylor has apparently stepped off of the pages of an old manuscript and she's angry. She demands that Emily give her a stronger life force, so Emily begins to write stories set around the world for the two of them. As the eroticism of the stories increases, Milicent becomes more viable and Emily's obsession with her mushrooms as she also discovers what she has been shutting out of her own life. As their relationship grows, Emily loses more touch with reality until all there is in her world is Milicent; then Milicent threatens to leave, which Emily can't let happen. Meanwhile, the clues in McCallister's crime are beginning to point in a direction that might include Emily and/or Milicent. The question is how because Milicent isn't real, is she?

Rosalyn Wraight has written an intriguing book. It can be exasperating for the reader at first if you have preconceived notions about how a mystery should develop because this story certainly doesn't follow that track. For a while it seems as if Wraight is trying to trick the reader into reading an erotica book by calling it a mystery and there doesn't seem to be any reason to include the storyline about Laura McCallister at all. The Emily Decker story seems beyond far fetched, but the reader should bear with the writer. This is truly one of those books where everything comes together at the end and makes perfect sense. The pieces of the puzzle suddenly start falling together and it becomes clear that this is the way the story had to be written. The last five chapters of the book give it a terrific ending that make the book worth reading and it becomes clear that there were clues throughout the book as to what was coming that were probably missed or, if noted, discounted in the convergence of the other plot lines. So, when you're tempted to put the book down, keep reading. Like a good dinner, the dessert comes at the end.

Hang in there and pay attention. The twists are subtle and by the end you'll want to go back and find the ones you missed. Downloading the next McAllister mystery now.

At first it appears that author Emily Decker is slowly losing touch with reality. She is getting more and more wrapped up in her mildly desperate fantasy that one of her created characters is persuading her to dive into deeper every day. Millicent, the character, appears to Emily and encourages Emily to spend more and more time writing about Millicent so she will continue to appear to Emily. Since Emily is falling in love with Millicent, she is desperate to do whatever Millicent claims will keep her around.

Emily's descent into madness is so attractive, the reader almost wants to be Emily. If I thought writing stories about her would bring a beautiful and exciting woman out to spend time with me, I would be writing stories about her now. Everyone wants their fantasy to come true.

Ms Wraight has written a story that actually makes insanity seem attractive. You have to read it to believe it.