In Amazon USA’s Author Central, Terri Blackstock describes herself as a “New York Times best-seller, with over seven million copies sold worldwide.” She writes Christian suspense, a sub-genre of Christian fiction. This is the first title of its kind I’ve read though I’ve enjoyed a few Christian-romance novels by Karen Kingsbury and Francine Rivers before.
Here’s the plot: Jay Cramer goes to his ex-wife’s home after receiving an e-mail from her to discuss custody arrangements of their five-year -old son. When he reaches her home, a clown dashes out and drives away in a white pickup. Inside the house, Jay finds his ex-wife dead and, after the cops question him, he’s arrested. Jay’s three sisters — Cathy, Juliet and Holly — play part-time sleuths to prove his innocence, and are assisted by Michael Hogan, a P.I. Later, Jay’s five-year-old son is deliberately poisoned with E.Coli.
The prose is straight forward and, if you’re expecting the stuff of James Ellroy, James M. Cain or Ross MacDonald in terms of language, you won’t get it here. After all, this is a Christian mystery, not a hard-boiled detective story. No cursing, no sex scenes. But the story flows quickly. Now, the characters. Three characters investigating a crime has turned the story without a central character — not a strong point. There's also a scene which is incredulous. A character manages to access his mother’s online banking account by guessing her password correctly! With no car chases and no fights, this novel delivers a mild thrill. What about the God element? Nope, I didn’t find anything preachy in here. My rating: 3/5.
GIVEAWAY: If you want a PDF copy of Truth Stained Lies, drop me your e-mail address at thewordslinger@yahoo.com. It’s yours FREE! This giveaway is valid for one week from the date of this posting.
/end
No comments:
Post a Comment