Do You Promise Not To Tell? (2005) - Plot & Excerpts
Mary Jane's Second Outing -- Much Better !!In her first novel, Mary Jane Clark gave us a fine plot with plenty of suspense til right near the end, some characters to like (albeit the leading lady was a bit "squeaky clean"), and a different venue from most mysteries -- the busy newsroom of a major broadcast studio. Our gripe was that there was too much clutter, from almost unnecessary sub-plots to discussions about diseases and so on, that distracted from our story. Yet, we wanted to move to this book (her second novel) and see if we might find some improvement.Indeed, the elements we liked are back: an excellent plot, with another late reasonably surprising "whodunit" at the end; the broadcast news venue; and characters we could relate to -- not so squeaky clean this time! Our leading lady, Farrell Slater, whose producing job is on the line throughout (actually, "given notice" by her boss, Range Bullock, whose minor role was reprised from book 1) discovers a probable art fraud of a six-million-dollars-at-auction Faberge Egg leftover from Imperialist Russia. So in addition to a couple of attacks and murders to solve, the true whereabouts and story of the egg form an entertaining tale throughout.I think Mary Jane is on to something; to us, this is clearly a better effort than her first, although maybe not quite the "Stunner!" claimed by none other than [the real:] Dan Rather on the dust jacket. The distractions are gone except for one remaining peeve -- our 260 pages of story are divided into 139 chapters. Maybe our author, a TV Newswoman in real life, just can't get away from a sound byte mentality. Keep the good stuff, give us a little more time per scene, and we'll be looking for five stars in her ensuing work. Good reading!
I started reading one of Mary Jane Clark's earlier books and couldn't put it down. Do You Promise Not To Tell is an easy fast paced mystery about Farrell Slater, A TV news producer, who at the crossroads of her career happens upon a story about a NY auction house and fraudulent Faberge eggs. As Farrell and her coworkers are pulled deeper into the mystery, bodies begin to pile up. Farrell does not realize that she may be the next target as she tries to balance her career, life and what may the biggest and most dangerous story of her career. An early Mary Jane Clark mystery full of drama and intrigue.
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