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The Gifted: A Joanne Kilbourn Mystery (2013)

by Gail Bowen(Favorite Author)

3.64 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0771009984 (ISBN13: 9780771009983)

languge

English

genre

Mystery & Thriller

publisher

McClelland & Stewart

series

A Joanne Kilbourn Mystery

review 1: I used to love this series, but I'm in agreement with the other commenters who think that it's grown stale. Didn't we already see a storyline where a troubled adolescent boy was obsessed with the artist daughter? And hasn't the oldest daughter's turbulent love life also been run into the ground a little? And while I'm totally down with the second marriage, the way she neglects to specify right away that her children are from her first marriage or adopted seems weird - it's fine for Zack to be LIKE a father to them, but he's not actually their father. Then there's the fact that every single time she talks about Taylor or anyone else painting, she invariably uses the pretentious term 'making art'. Okay, I'm just nitpicking now. I usually love it when characters in a series g... morerow and change, but this feels less like growth and more like stultification. Not to mention the everpresent danger of Jessica Fletcher syndrome when a character isn't a police officer or private detective - why exactly DO people keep dropping dead around this woman?
review 2: This book sounded really interesting, but I ended up being bored the whole way through. The "mystery" was too easy to solve, and I kept getting frustrated at how the main character acted. Joanne and her husband end up leaving their daughter alone with a person that they very well know could be a killer. Granted, I'm not a parent, but I don't know any parent that is that lax about what their child does. I kept yelling at the book. Another difficulty for me was that almost every single character was introduced at a party which was like the 3rd scene in the book. So the author describes what seems like 50 people one right after another, and of course it's a costume party too, just to confuse matters even more. To be fair, I've never read any of the other books in this series, so it's possible that this one needs to be read in sequence instead of alone.Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book through First Reads. less

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