Book Review: Dot.Dead

Reviewed By: Cheryl - RAM

Dot.Dead     Amazon US TPB Amazon Canada TPB
Keith Raffel
Class/Genre:   Mystery
Series: Silicon Valley Mysteries
Midnight Ink, 2006

Ian Michaels is a Silicon Valley success story. He's got a great job working for a man he admires and respects, and has high hopes for even further advancement. His beautiful home is kept in order by the present-day equivalent of Beauty's invisible servants - an unseen but motherly maid sent by an agency, who cleans his house Wednesdays while he is at work and leaves notes and cookies for him to find when he comes home. Everything is perfect until one day he is mugged inside his own house, and the very next day, he finds his maid dead on his bed. Moreover, the extremely un-motherly maid is actually a beautiful and brilliant university student who has given her friends and relatives the impression that she and Ian were lovers. Naturally, the police suspect that Ian had a part in the murder, and Ian is determined to uncover the murderer, as much for his own protection as to obtain justice for his dead maid.

The vivid description of Ian's life and work in the more elevated levels of a Silicon Valley business is a great strength of the book. Few people are fortunate enough to experience a career as exciting and absorbing as his. The author works in the same field, and must surely enjoy his work if it inspires Ian's life. Not many people know enough about upper management to visualize such a workplace, and to see it portrayed so vividly is adds greatly to the interest of the story.

The 'invisible' maid is quite plausible, too - how many of us deal constantly with people we never meet, forming our own conclusions about them from telephone or email messages?

I found the conclusion a little unsatisfying. It lacked something of the moral neatness of having the murderer punished appropriately and the world set right which is usually a satisfying aspect of a mystery novel. In spite of this, 'Dot Dead' is a well-written and enjoyable mystery novel.

Cheryl - RAM

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Cheryl - RAM