Book Review: Blue Twilight

Reviewed By: Kat - RAM - Wisconsin

Blue Twilight     Amazon US PB Amazon Canada PB
Jessica Speart
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Government Agency
Series: Rachel Porter # 8
Avon Books/ An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, September 2004, 304 pages

Rachel Porter, U. S. Fish and Wildlife Agent, has recently transferred to San Francisco. While she thinks that chasing felonious lepidopterists is a bit beneath her, she doesn’t realize that butterflies can be hazardous to your health; especially if you get on the wrong side of fanatical collector.

After receiving a call about a missing biologist, Rachel heads to the hills, where she comes across a sleazy ”entrepreneur” who breeds and sells butterflies, both common and endangered. He points her towards a collector of epic proportions, and off to Mendocino she runs, searching for the lost scientist, a mysterious man known as “Horus,” the elusive, possibly even extinct, Lotus Blue Butterfly.

In their spare time, Rachel, beau Jake Santou, and her cross-dressing best friend Terry are asked to help find a friend’s runaway daughter, who may be in San Francisco. Her trail leads through Goth bars and tattoo parlors, where Rachel finds beautiful yet haunting art; and more butterflies.

Rachel Porter does tend toward the rash one-woman-show technique of heading into dark alleys without backup or a working cell phone, but this has a tight dénouement that is, one has to admit, a bit original. I like Jessica Speart’s sense of place and people. Her characters are colorful and her landscapes, city and country, set the scene without taking over the book. Without being preachy, she also gives the reader a bit of information about environmental issues. This is a series that I’ll continue to read.

Originally posted in Crimespree Magazine #2, August/September 2004.

Kat - RAM - Wisconsin

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