The number one thing is when the suspense is building, we've got a lot of good questions that are sure to be answered at the turn of a page and then BOOM, a snippet of "past life" is dropped in the first paragraph of the page which totally wipes out the entire suspense thing, ruining any delicious feeling of anticipation and mystery, snatching the storyline's flow and shoving the reader into a swirling eddy sideshow. It doesn't work because it is manipulation of the reader and the story. Either decide the focus will be the past of the heroine and use the job as the FBI agent as a backdrop story, or be up front in a prologue and spill the whole bean pot about the protagonist's history. Do not spoil the show since the history of the protag does not mean beans to the plot of the murder of the Smithsonian Director.
This story goes in way too many directions to be coherent. It would have be a great thriller if we didn't that this pitiful angst of the protag which is medicated with alcohol to the point of a clear need for intervention. This is written like one of those CSI episodes which has two character's solving one crime and another two solving a different crime. It's okay that the two are parallel and never meet into one big crime because we have the continuity of the two sets of characters. When you switch, you know which story you are in because of the characters. Here we don't have such relief. We've got two main plots with one character. It doesn't flow well.
One plot is extremely melodramatic. While I can appreciate Cave is trying to be sensitive to alcoholism and showing there is good cause for people to want to medicate on alcohol, it is obvious that she has not lived with an alcoholic nor has suffered from it. I can say this because I have lived through both. This part of the story is two dimensional at best and some of it reads like a rehab center's brochure, and not at all like a character study. Another problem is the back story for Thomas who was the guy kidnapped, then murdered. It is written in italics and that's when you know... OH, here's more about Thomas. That is a story flow stopper and just does not integrate well with the other two plots. We get seasick from the flipflop, teeter here totter there, bait and switch. I'm thinking this is the poorest editing I've seen in a long time.
The other plot is GREAT! It has wonderful development, great suspense, really evil characters, really nice characters, and some characters that don't have a clue which all work very well within the texture of the story. So here, you'll have to take the bad with the good if you want to read this book. For me, it was Skim City.
I give it one star out of five.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
ABOUT THE BOOK
Thomas Whitfield, proud Secretary of the Smithsonian and its extensive scientific influence, has disappeared from his office with foul play suspected. Dinah Harris, an FBI agent struggling with alcohol and depression, is seeking answers amidst the fallout of her own personal issues.
Whitfield's body is eventually found, and other people connected to him begin dying as well, ultimately exposing a broader conspiracy connected to Whitfield's recent conversion to Christ and promotion of a biblical worldview in an academic world of financial gain hostile to this concept.
Will Dinah be able to experience the redemptive power of Christ before it's too late? Or will the ominous danger stalking her investigation claim another victim?
If you would like to read the first chapter of Deadly Disclosure, go HERE.
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