Title: Buried Cold Case Secrets
Author: Sami A. Abrams
Series: n/a
Amateurish but better than expected
I would like to thank Sami A. Abrams, Harlequin, and NetGalley for allowing me to read a free ARC in exchange for an honest review. Also thank you to Lisa Wray for inviting me on the blog tour.
This book was a solid piece of work and better than I expected, though still amateurish. The writing style lacked personality but wasn’t off-putting or bad by any means. Just felt rather cookie-cutter. A few odd choices were made, such as when it said Jason’s wood-slab coffee table took Melanie’s breath away. Really? The coffee table, of all things, was such a beauty to behold it took her breath away?
Also, more than once a character was startled—which in itself happened a lot—and scattered papers all over, even if they weren’t holding papers. Definitely gives a sense of over-acting, as it were, or perhaps cartoonishness.
Another thing—burying the body in the rose garden was totally cliche. So was Melanie’s memory loss, for that matter, but that one I’ll forgive.
The pace was quick and steady, the tension high as Jason fought his feelings for Melanie and as attempt after attempt was made on Melanie’s life. Actually—and I don’t think I’ve ever had this complaint before—there was almost too much action. By which I mean Melanie got attacked several times—hold on, let me count, I’m curious . . . Four stalking incidents and eight attacks within 84%, in a rather short book. The trips to the hospital got tiresome, though I honestly started to look forward to seeing Brent and Ethan, the EMTs who always responded to the attacks (Were they the only EMTs in Valley Springs?). I wonder if we hadn’t had to go through the hospital routine every time if the attacks wouldn’t have become tedious.
I am impressed, though, that Abrams accomplished as much character development between attacks as she did; like I said, it wasn’t a very long book. Both Melanie and Jason were likeable. Maybe not quite endearing, but definitely well-developed and sympathetic characters. Melanie could have had more of an arc than just finding the courage to confront the memories of her abduction, but it did well enough. Jason had a bit more to do, given the trouble with his father.
Some small gaps might exist in the story, or I could have just missed some information. For instance, did we ever find out how Melanie got poisoned with antifreeze? How in the world did the perp accomplish that? How could Melanie mistake antifreeze for water? One, wouldn’t it taste awful? Two, antifreeze comes in bright colors for a reason. Mine happens to be bright radioactive green/yellow, no way I’m mistaking that for water.
Also, why was Sheriff Monroe made to appear so suspicious? As far as I could tell, he had nothing to do with the mystery at all and was just a complete red herring. Speaking of, the scene after the fire when he explains why his clothes are soaked in gasoline had to be the most blatant and obvious attempt at a misdirection I’ve ever witnessed. He was not a well-written red herring; Ben, on the other hand, was an excellent one.
And why in the world did the bones discovered by the hikers in the beginning have nothing to do with the central plot? Their only purpose was . . . I honestly don’t know. We can’t call them a subplot because they had no story; Melanie just dug them up, maybe studied them for a minute, then in the resolution we’re told they belonged to some random girl who hadn’t even lived in the area. Just a random crime, completely unrelated. Nope, sorry, that’s not how good plotting works. Why couldn’t they have belonged to one of Randy’s victims? Or been a plot in their own right? Melanie spent way more time getting attacked and taken to the hospital than she did studying bones and doing forensic work. She’s definitely no Tempe Brennan.
I did get confused about the police departments and which was doing what, who worked for which. It’s one small town but there seemed to be two different police departments? County and town? Is that a thing? Really not sure. I have no idea how jurisdictions work, and the book didn’t do a good job explaining.
Lastly, I failed to realize the story would have inspirational—aka religious—themes, which was a bummer but easy enough to ignore. That’s on me.
So overall, again, this was solid work, but could use some improvements. Abrams wrote pretty good characters, and her pacing was excellent, but she could work on closing the gaps in her story and building subplots rather than spending so much time in the hospital. (That’s not to say she shouldn’t be realistic, but no one likes sitting in the hospital in real life, so why would we want to do it in our escapism?)
