| Title: | Murmurs of Insanity | |
| Author: | Gerrie Ferris Finger | |
| Published: | 7/16/14, Gale Cengage Learning | |
| No. of Pages: | 307 | |
| Cover Price: | $25.95 Hardcover US |
Moriah Dru, an ex-cop, has her own detective agency, Child Trace, and specializes in finding missing children. Her boyfriend, Richard Lake is a detective for the police department in Atlanta. Sometimes their cases intersect and they find themselves working together. Richard is quite protective of Dru, and is there when needed to help her survive dangerous situations, and attempts on her life. Murmurs of Insanity is the third installment in the series written by award-winning author Gerrie Ferris Finger. Dru’s best friend, Portia, is a judge (who refers missing children’s cases to her) and asks her to locate Johndro Phillips, a teenager who is missing. Johndro witnessed a drug deal and murder while working for a dangerous and ruthless drug dealer. Johndro’s life is in danger, since the drug dealer often eliminates witnesses so they can’t testify against him. Dru is also hired by Lake’s ex-wife’s wealthy half-brother, Baxter Carlisle, a successful restaurateur, to find a missing young man, and gets involved in a bizarre sphere of the art world, putting not only her life, but the lives of several others, on the line.
Finger’s writing style is straightforward and matter-of-fact. The book is easy reading, but the twists and turns of the plot and the interesting characters keep the reader’s interest. There are a few minor grammatical and usage errors in the text (i.e., “he seems to specialist” instead of “he seems to specialize” on page 76), but mine is an uncorrected review copy, so these errors may be corrected in the actual publication. Being a foodie, I appreciate the fact that several places where Dru attends dinner with Baxter and eats at his restaurants, the food is described in detail; the mouthwatering dishes made me hungry and it was tempting to stop reading and get something good to eat.
I did find that the aspect of the art world that the characters are involved in is a little weird, and possibly far-fetched, but my unfamiliarity doesn’t mean that it is non-existent – it is just another interesting subject to check out.
All told, this is a good book and worth reading. It would probably be a good idea to read the earlier books in the series first to get a little more background history of the characters, but there is enough information on the characters’ past to make it a good read without doing so.
Special thanks to PJ Nunn of Breakthrough Promotions for supplying an advance reading copy of this novel.
This book may be purchased at Amazon: Murmurs of Insanity (A Moriah Dru/Richard Lake Mystery)
