Belinda G. Buchanan

Everett Harrington, a hard-lined corporate trader who enjoys using his tough negotiating skills to buy out struggling companies, breaking them apart, and selling the divisions for tremendous profits, has just hired a housekeeping nanny, Greta, to take care of his 12 year old daughter, Renee, and his 16 year old son, Ethan, whose mother passed away several years ago. However, despite the addition of a hopefully calming nanny, the memories leading up to and surrounding the mother’s death continue to stir conflict and dysfunction between the over-controlling Everett, who expects and demands that his son must follow his vision to go to the appropriate college and join his corporate realm, and Ethan, who feels that the memories he has of his mother’s death must lead him down another direction. It is noted that this novel is a prequel to the author’s previous work, “After All is Said and Done”, and it probably would have provided a better foundation to have read the first book prior to reading this, as it took a lot of reading patience to reach an understanding and find a connection with the basically unlikable father and son characters. However, readers who seek to discover deeply inner psychological character themes will find some satisfaction in the mainly well-written 500+ pages of a deeply dysfunctional family drama.… (mehr)

Liam Matthews, having just taken up the job of sheriff for the small town of Weeping Rock in South Dakota, a job his father held until an accident disabled him, finds himself suddenly dealing with three deaths, the body of a famous ex-professional baseball player found in the waters of an icy lake, a car with another body inside nearby in the same icy lake, and the body of a teenage girl found in nearby small clearing. The investigation of the three cases that may or may not be related involves a lot of time for him and his detectives, time that interferes with his tenuous relationship with his wife and his father, who is living with them while demanding that he be involved in helping with the cases and denigrating his son’s running of the his former position in the town. For impatient avid mystery fans, the story will mainly be somewhat disappointing, as the majority of the tale becomes more based on the tough relationships, marital, family, medical, and official, between multiple characters, putting the police procedural investigation and mystery revelations into a minor backseat. However, readers who are more enticed by a base drama built upon character complexity will be more engrossed in the in-depth writing of the multiple plots within the small rural town.… (mehr)

This was honestly just the perfect book for me to read this week. A good thriller never goes astray and it has been a while. And even better, it's a standalone so there's no major backstory or foreshadowing of future events (even if there is apparently a sequel).

Most summers Silver Creek is a vacation getaway. Lots of tourists come in, money is made, and all is happy. However over the past month a serial killer has been leaving bodies next to the lake and there are no clues to the murder weapon let alone who it is.

Police Chief Nathan Sommers is trying his best to find the killer before another body is discovered. He's getting pressure from a local reporter the ex-boyfriend of his former wife who gave her photographic evidence of Nathan's infidelity at the time which led to her dying in a car accident after she ran out of the house. Yeah they get on real well.. The mayor his ex-father in law is concerned about his re-election later in the year and is saying that Nathan has 'lost his urge'. On top of this Nathan is dealing with personal problems due to him starting to fall in love with the new baker in town while he still hasn't come to terms with the death of his pregnant wife

I liked that the murder investigation wasn't the only thing which the police concentrated on during the course of this book. At various times they had to deal with unpaid parking tickets, domestic arguments, bar fights, planning for Fourth of July celebrations, and strangers in the neighbourhood. Crime as a whole didn't stop while they investigated and that felt realistic to me (it bugs me that some thrillers have the police able to devote every single minute to chasing the killer - not realistic in a small town).

There was a romantic thread weaving through this (between Nathan and Katie) but we also heard events from other characters POV (Jack one of the deputies) which rounded this out. Things didn't proceed smoothly at all.

I didn't suspect who the 'monster' was but it didn't feel as though it had been 'sprung' on the reader. There were even clues dropped (when considered in hindsight). The ending was unexpected but it felt right.

A definite worthwhile read and I'll be looking out for this author's work to read again.… (mehr)

The Monster of Silver Creek. Belinda G. Buchanan. 2011. I was reading this Kindle download at the gym the same time I was reading Love in the Ruins. It was sort of like going from National Review or First Things to People Magazine! A serial murderer is killing young women in a resort town. The sheriff who his fighting his own guilt battle over the death of his wife, must find the killer, appease the mayor who is the father of his dead wife, and save the new woman with whom he is falling in love. It was all predictable except the ending which was a real shocker, but even that is not enough to make me want to read the sequel.… (mehr)