Secret
Sins
A Callie Anson
Mystery
Kate Charles
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1-59058-356-6 (1590583566)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59058-356-2 (9781590583562)
Publication Date: March 2007
List Price: $24.95
Synopsis (from
the publisher): Life may not be getting any easier for curate Callie
Anson, but it is definitely getting more interesting. Her relationship
with policeman Marco Lombardi grows ever warmer, even though he seems
to be keeping her away from his close Italian family. Then her own
brother Peter, beloved and engaging as he is, gets a bit too close for
comfort when he moves in with Callie.
Professionally, things are challenging as well. Callie has become
involved with the problems of a new parishioner. Morag Hamilton is
worried about her granddaughter Alex--a lonely and isolated
twelve-year-old with a work-obsessed father and a self-absorbed
step-mother. If Morag knew how much time Alex spends on the internet,
she would have even more cause for worry.
Meanwhile, Detective Inspector Neville Stewart tries to put his
personal problems on hold as he deals with Rachel Norton, a pregnant
young woman with a missing husband. With the birth of their first baby
only a few days away, why would Trevor Norton go out jogging and not
return?
Trevor's disappearance may not be what it seems. Just when Neville
thinks he's solved it, someone else goes missing: young Alex Hamilton.
Review:
Kate Charles' second entry in the Reverend Callie Anson series, Secret
Sins, is a series of interrelated vignettes that when viewed as a whole
make for an intriguing novel but which barely qualify to be characterized as a mystery.
The primary plot thread and the only one that has a logical beginning
and ending is also the most interesting. Alex Hamilton is the young
daughter of a successful businessman who attends an exclusive school
where she doesn't fit in. She has an antagonistic relationship with her
stepmother and though her treasured grandmother lives only a short
distance away, Alex isn't allowed to visit with her. She has only a
locket by which to remember her mother who is locked away in a hospital
in Scotland. When her situation at home becomes intolerable, she leaves
on a treacherous trek to find her mother. Callie Anson, the local
parish curate who has befriended Alex's grandmother Morag, unwittingly
participates in the investigation of Alex's disappearance when she
accompanies Morag on a trip to Scotland.
The mystery of Secret Sins
is in one of the secondary subplots. A
father-to-be is killed one morning while jogging by person or persons
unknown. The only item missing is his iPod which the police rapidly
conclude the theft of which was the reason he was killed. Astute
readers will just as
rapidly come to a different, more probable, and in the end correct,
conclusion. Callie isn't involved in this subplot which itself seems to
have been added for the sole purpose of including a dead body into the
book.
The various other plot threads (Callie's relationship with her family,
her potential romantic relationship with policeman Marco
Lombardi, her relationship with the members of her church and
their families, and two or three more) all serve to round out the
principal character, but do little else in and of themselves.
Secret Sins is an interesting, well written book populated by appealing, complex characters, but don't expect a whodunit, howdunit,
or whydunit—it's none of these.
Special thanks to Poisoned Pen Press for providing an ARC of Secret Sins for this review.
Review Copyright © 2007 | Hidden Staircase
Mystery Books | All
Rights Reserved.
Mysteries in this series ...
Evil Intent
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover), 2005
ISBN-10: 1-59058-200-4 (1590582004)
Secret Sins
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover), 2007
ISBN-10: 1-59058-356-6 (1590583566)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59058-356-2 (9781590583562)
Omnimystery keywords for Secret Sins ...
Location(s) referenced: London, Scotland.
