Monday, December 10, 2007

Shallow Grave (Julie Collins) by Lori G. Armstrong

Lori outdoes herself in her third and latest Julie Collins novel. Again she presents us a multitude of plots (the unsolved murder of her brother, the appearance of that brother’s kid, a pregnant friend, an undercover job for her lover and badass biker Martinez, the murder of a Native American girl) but she manages to tie things up better than in the first two novels.
The action is fast and furious, there’s murder, deceit, sex and violence enough to satisfy any hardboiled mystery fan. Julie is again tough, sarcastic, smoking, drinking and kicking ass, hanging around with tough guys like her lover Martinez, partner Kevin and psycho sidekick Jimmer. More than ever though she’s a very emotional character in this one. I really felt for her, went through the same surprises when she unmasked the killers, felt my heart beat faster when she confronted the killer of her brother and understood her when she admitted how she always tried to deal with her pain on her own.
All 500+ pages I was reading to get to the ending, but when I got there I felt disappointment. Not because the ending was not satisfying but because I was going to have to wait for October 2008 for Julie to return in ‘Snowblind.’
Recently Lori Armstrong got a nice big publisher deal… If you read this one you’ll understand why.

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