Snapshot
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
1 journaler for this copy...
Purchased from a library sale in Palm Springs yesterday.
Barnes' lead character, Carlotta Carlyle, is of the tough-cookie female PI variety. She's 6'-2", has flaming red hair and attitude up to here. She's tough and ornery and walks all over people.
I don't like her all that much. But that's me. I don't mind tough and ornery and tall and red-headed. I just got a little tired of all of the "watch me, I'm so tough and beautiful and blah blah blah" stuff between the lines, not that well hidden.
What else bothered me in this novel is that Barnes has done minimal homework. The main part of this plot is set in a hospital and involves very sick people. Yet the storyline lacks the details of the illnesses and the treatments that would give it life. Toward the end there is a sick woman who has been given drugs to dull her memory and the doctor who treats her isn't at all clear about what is going on. It's all fairly fuzzy.
Not only is the medical part fuzzy but the investigation is driven by a need by the writer to get certain knowledge to our star, Carlotta. So, based on a brief description of something a client saw in a hospital room, Carlotta heads out on a crusade and even convinces others there is something besides air there. She also puts on disguises and just happens to run into the right people and learn the right little tidbits of information. It's a bit like Nancy Drew.
We do get to see something of her personal life, which at times is refreshing but also tends toward trite. She cares a great deal about her "little sister", an eleven-year-old daughter of a mom who doesn't take particularly good care of her. She has friends in the right places who do handy things for her. All out of the detective writer's playbook, in my opinion.
Did I say what the story is about, generally, so you can maybe remember if you've already read it?
Suspicious death of small girl child who had cancer. Chances of survival very high but somehow a bout of chemo goes bad. Investigation leads deep into the heart of the "Helping Hand" institute and the esteemed and well-loved doctor Muir. So where is the dirt? That's what Carlotta finds out.
I don't like her all that much. But that's me. I don't mind tough and ornery and tall and red-headed. I just got a little tired of all of the "watch me, I'm so tough and beautiful and blah blah blah" stuff between the lines, not that well hidden.
What else bothered me in this novel is that Barnes has done minimal homework. The main part of this plot is set in a hospital and involves very sick people. Yet the storyline lacks the details of the illnesses and the treatments that would give it life. Toward the end there is a sick woman who has been given drugs to dull her memory and the doctor who treats her isn't at all clear about what is going on. It's all fairly fuzzy.
Not only is the medical part fuzzy but the investigation is driven by a need by the writer to get certain knowledge to our star, Carlotta. So, based on a brief description of something a client saw in a hospital room, Carlotta heads out on a crusade and even convinces others there is something besides air there. She also puts on disguises and just happens to run into the right people and learn the right little tidbits of information. It's a bit like Nancy Drew.
We do get to see something of her personal life, which at times is refreshing but also tends toward trite. She cares a great deal about her "little sister", an eleven-year-old daughter of a mom who doesn't take particularly good care of her. She has friends in the right places who do handy things for her. All out of the detective writer's playbook, in my opinion.
Did I say what the story is about, generally, so you can maybe remember if you've already read it?
Suspicious death of small girl child who had cancer. Chances of survival very high but somehow a bout of chemo goes bad. Investigation leads deep into the heart of the "Helping Hand" institute and the esteemed and well-loved doctor Muir. So where is the dirt? That's what Carlotta finds out.
Journal Entry 3 by 
jlautner
at Laguna Lake Park in San Luis Obispo, California USA on Sunday, February 22, 2009
jlautner at Laguna Lake Park in San Luis Obispo, California USA on Sunday, February 22, 2009
Released 16 yrs ago (2/22/2009 UTC) at Laguna Lake Park in San Luis Obispo, California USA
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
on a chair next to the restrooms in the dog park area
on a chair next to the restrooms in the dog park area
