For me, these books provide the pleasure of recognition, as I lived near Eagle River for a time. Houston is a pleasant, gracious person, and this is reflected in her work. She does a decent job of portraying the flavor of the Wisconsin Northwoods, an area she obviously loves. Her characters are likeable and the stories are fun.This book had the same tone of the other books. There is a pleasant sameness to this series. The characters' personalities are always pretty much the same. There's always some fishing involved. Jealousy or greed always drive people to kill. The murderers in this story were satisfingly nasty people. These are light, fun reads, but in all of these books there is a bit of darkness too. The Northwoods is constantly under pressure from development. Summer brings a tourist horde that often rubs roughly against local sensibilities. Million dollar lakeshore "cabins" sit in uncomfortable proximity to poverty and endemic unemployment. There's enough of this in Houston's books to give them a bit of edge. While I enjoyed this book, it wasn't my favorite. It had all the familiar elements but kept going over old ground. I felt like she was spending too much time re-introducing each of her recurring characters. This is Houston's first book with a new publisher and perhaps she felt the need to introduce the characters to new readers. As someone who has read the other books, I found it repetitive.Still, this was an enjoyable book. I look forward to further entries to the series.
What do You think about Dead Madonna (2007)?
I am always looking for new mystery authors. This book looked interesting, but I was very disappointed in both the story and the characters. It takes place in Wisconsin. This was the most interesting part. It must be quite beautiful there around the lakes and streams. The main character is a female chief of police whom I just didn't feel any reality about. Her sometimes deputy and medical examiner, is her lover, and the town's dentist. I was married to a dentist for 49 years and the description of the dentist's personality didn't sit right with me. His demeanor was usually descibed as the way he would look at a patient that hadn't flossed enough or a patient that had waited too long between visits. The mystery wasn't too interesting either and the perpertrator was easy to decide upon. I on't read any of her other books.
—Sherry
