Review: The Parcel Express Murders

Samoa Tate is the beautiful psychiatrist who feels she has her life on track. Christine Hawkins, her best friend and married to a police detective, knows better. So, as any happily married new mother would do to her best friend, she arranges for Samoa to meet her husband's single partner, Eddie Clark. At the same time, Samoa's newest patient, an emergency referral, is the wife of a recent brutal dual homicide in the city. But which of the victims was actually the target? Or were they both?

When more people are killed, the city begins to panic and wants a solution. Samoa finds herself the rather unwilling doctor to a patient who had reasons of her own to want the first victim dead, as did the patients brothers. The detectives know the killings are all related, but are unable to find anything that ties them all together, until it's almost too late - for everyone.

I warned the author that I can be a tough critic. As a murder mystery, Connor has all the right elements, but I actually felt that the book was too short, and skimmed over things that could have been dealt with in more depth - especially the police investigation. She has created what, for me, could be fascinating characters. I enjoyed the relationships she has built - between husband and wife, mother and husband, Samoa and her mother, and Samoa and Eddie. I enjoyed the "wise-ass" attitudes they display that have a depth that can only occur between people really close to each other; that can be difficult to write, but Connor has done it with a very sensitive touch.

That said, the actual mystery doesn't seem to be as important as the relationship between Samoa and Eddie. Profession ethics should have dictated that Samoa remove herself from treating the first victim's husband as soon as she realized she was involved with people on both sides of the investigation in this particular case. There are some plot holes in the mystery itself, even though I'm willing to suspend my disbelief in many cases, because without coincidences, books wouldn't happen, and I'm left with the feeling that Ms. Connor isn't quite sure whether she is writing a mystery, or a romance. That said, I DID like the characters, and believe that with a bit more research into police procedures and a bit of fleshing out and filling in of her story, Ms. Connor could indeed have what would be a welcome addition to the mystery genre if she decided to continue it into a series. There is some very real potential here as a series, and I'd like to see that happen.

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Book Review: The Parcel Express Murders