Thursday, October 18, 2012

An Unattended Death by Victoria Jenkins


First Line: The body, face down and almost completely submerged in the tea-colored water of the slough, might easily have been mistaken for a driftwood log.

After four years with the LAPD, Irene Chavez has returned to her rural Washington state roots to raise her teenage son. Although there is no overt hostility towards her in the Mason County Sheriff's Department, Irene knows she changes the dynamic and makes several of the men uneasy. She can deal with it.

Especially in times like now, when there's an unattended death and everyone else is either on vacation or has full case loads. By default, Irene gets this death-- the probable boating accident/drowning of Anne Paris on her family's summer property on an island in Puget Sound.

As Irene makes her measured, careful way through the investigation and gets to know those closest to the deceased, she is convinced that the boom of a sailboat didn't kill the young psychiatrist, but someone close to her. All she has to do is prove it.

Irene Chavez is definitely a character that I want to see a lot more of. Her background, her self-reliance, her becoming a police officer then a young widow who decides to move her son from Los Angeles to rural Washington state... as Jenkins gradually unfolded Irene's history throughout the narrative, the more I liked her, and the more I wanted to read about her. The relationship between her and her son is a special one that adds so much to the story as does the appearance of a new county attorney who seems interested in her. Irene has closed off many rooms of her life, and as she investigates further into the case of the dead woman, the reader feels one or two of those doors beginning to open. The lure of what lies beyond is tantalizing.

Jenkins' descriptions of life in a remote area on Puget Sound are almost poetic in setting a scene and a mood, and although I knew the identity of the killer the very first time the person was described, it didn't matter. I thoroughly enjoyed the careful plotting, the strong sense of place, and the oh-so-rich character development. I am definitely going to keep both eyes open for another book featuring Detective Irene Chavez!

An Unattended Death by Victoria Jenkins
ISBN:  9781579622848
Permanent Press © 2012
Hardcover, 264 pages

Police Procedural, #1 Irene Chavez mystery
Rating: A
Source: LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program

8 comments:

  1. Cathy - I can see why you got so interested in this character! She sounds like a well-drawn character and that move from L.A. to Washington draws me in too. I'm glad you found this a good 'un.

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    1. I could've gone on and on about this character, but decided that each of you reading about Irene is worth much more than me being poetic and long-winded! :-)

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  2. You've hook me! Putting this book on my list right now.

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    1. Wonderful! I hope you like it as much as I did!

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  3. I'm definitely putting this on my TBR mountain, but I don't know how I'll ever get to it, although feisty, independent women protagonists are my favorites.

    Why is it that one reads one book, yet adds 3 books to the TBR list, thus creating an impossible challenge? We never catch up!

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    1. I'd rather never catch up than have nothing to read!

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  4. Sounds like a winner-adding!
    @Kathy D., I have on my GoodReads profile, "Hopefully the good Lord will let me live long enough to read all the books on my TBR list! :-)" I have 617 books marked to read...and that doesn't count all the series!!

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    1. I hope you get a chance to read it soon. It's a quiet little book that's probably going to slip beneath everyone's radar, and it's a shame because it's very good.

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