A chore to read.
Fiction – Mystery(Cozy)
384 pages
Publication Date: 2004
Alex Barnaby #1
Alexandra (Barney) Barnaby is in pursuit of her wayward brother, Bill, in
Miami. She hopes to find him and save
him from whatever fresh catastrophe he has gotten himself into this time. During her search she runs into Sam Hooker, a
NASCAR driver who is pursuing Bill for the theft of his boat. They learn that Bill is in pursuit of a
sunken treasure, but he isn’t the only one.
Together Barney and Hooker race to the finish line to find Bill before
the “others” can get to him and the sunken treasure he has found.
Try as I might I could never find the rhythm of the story and slip into
it. While things did get a little better
as the story progressed it never reached the point of redemption and in the end
just trying to finish the book was a real chore. I never warmed up to Barney and as a first
person narrative from viewpoint that was a real problem. Barney’s character just didn’t feel authentic
to me for some reason. I found Hooker
unlikable and got sick of his constant NASCAR references really quickly. The secondary characters were rather
disappointing, especially since I know that is one of the areas Evanovich tends
to shine in. The mystery itself could
have been incredibly interesting, but the characters were just too distracting
to really get into it. I regret the time
I spent on this one!
ISBN 0060584025 (ISBN13: 9780060584023)
