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IT'S A CRIME
by Jacqueline Carey
Ballantine, August 2008
274 pages
$24.00
ISBN: 034545992X


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Anyone who is a mystery buff will enjoy the interests of the main character of Jacqueline Carey's IT'S A CRIME. Pat Foy, the character at the heart of this novel, has been in love with mysteries since she was a girl, and the story is sprinkled with references to the genre. Pat's two closest friends are mystery writers as well. Yet in spite of this expertise, Pat can't seem to figure out what's going on right in front of her. When her husband (an accountant at an Enron-like telecommunications company) is arrested by the SEC for accounting fraud, Pat is stunned, wondering how anything as boring as accounting could lead to illegal activity.

Readers learn, however, that all the while, Pat's husband Frank has been bragging about what he's been up to and she just hasn't been listening, preferring instead to focus on her landscaping business and her books. Even after Frank ends up in jail, she seems unfocused and diffuse, finally deciding that she should try to help some of the company's victims, mostly people whom Frank worked with or who have some tangential relationship to each other. Indeed, this scandal has even touched her best friend, who has been living a subsistence lifestyle in Maine. Pat begins by writing checks, but soon decides to tackle this on a grander level. Just as she is about to pursue that course of action, her own teenage daughter is caught by police, seeking justice on her own terms.

The most interesting aspects of IT'S A CRIME are its fascinating characters and biting social commentary. With so many cases of corporate corruption and greed in the news during the last decade, the author could not have chosen a more timely subject on which to focus or a quirkier bunch of characters through which to tell her story. However, despite the enjoyment level, Carey seems to run out of steam just as the end approaches, leaving her readers with too many loose ends. Because readers come to care about these people and what happens to them, the ending may seem even more frustrating. Author Jacqueline Carey has opened many doors, but not left her readers with any neat answers or even an assumptive trail of crumbs to follow.

After writing such a winning novel, with a witty style and interesting storyline, its conclusion comes as a dull thud. Suddenly readers feel like Pat Foy, left without a clue about what the future holds.

Reviewed by Christine Zibas, August 2008

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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