Catherine Lea

A STOLEN WOMAN is the third novel in the Elizabeth McClaine series, and I can't help thinking it would have been much better to have read the earlier novels first as there's some back story here that took some sorting out. In short, Elizabeth McClaine is the custodian of a wealthy philanthropic fund who seems to have a penchant for finding young women in trouble. In this outing, she is pulled into the story of Laney Donohue, her disabled sister, and a worker at the residential home where the show more sister had been living, who has gone missing.

Once you get over the initial confusion about who is who, and how they all fit together, you will find that things start to flow well. It's an intriguing story, with the idea that Laney Donohue owes this missing young woman for the care and concern she showed her sister, and because her sister misses her and can't understand what has happened. Add to that the support that Elizabeth McClaine can provide to the hunt, it becomes quite an intriguing tale. There was more than enough that intrigues in A STOLEN WOMAN to add the first book in the series - THE CANDIDATE'S DAUGHTER - to an out of control To be Read List.

https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/stolen-woman-catherine-lea show less

Embark on a journey of utterly believable intrigue toward a nail-biting show-down that'll have you screaming "get'm, oh get'm, please", until the very last world-erupting word.
An emotional freight train running at an unprecedented pace into unfathomable darkness. A place of ice cold emptiness. A hollowed-out-heart. A wicked barren pit. You feel all this in the mother's pain, tangibly. You will hear a crinkle of paper, loud enough to set your teeth on edge, as she crunches up her heartfelt show more void right in front of you! Yet, it has rhythm, a speed to it that layers warmth to melt straight through the ice at the base of the tale. I felt myself rooting for the heroine(s) vocally(very loudly, in fact). At various intersections, I found my hands in fists of sheer anticipation. The suspense nearly killed me. I was so very involved in the story I dreaded its finale, now isn't that something?
Incredibly eloquent, you'll be marveling at phrase after phrase of first class, sparkling writing; could I say more?
Catherine Lea stitched me right into the fabric of her story without me even noticing that she had; the mark of a truly gifted author. show less

A swiss cheese mystery – full of holes and only mildly satisfying. The Candidate’s Daughter is the story of a special needs child who is abducted days before the election that her father is running in. It was suspenseful and action-packed for sure, and the actual writing was pretty good. But the story and its characters left me frustrated for a few reasons.
First, there were many holes in the story such as when ‘a fist came through the driver’s window in a shower of glass’ and then show more on the VERY NEXT page, that same window was somehow intact when a cop ‘knocked on the driver’s window with the knuckle of his forefinger’. Another example later in the book is when Elizabeth happens to take Blake’s phone by mistake and much later her husband says ‘so that explains why he wasn’t answering it’… but it NEVER rang while in her possession except that one time when she realized it wasn’t hers. The husband’s comment therefore made no sense at all.
The second frustrating detail was the ridiculous and implausible actions of most of the characters. None of it rang true to me and I found myself rolling my eyes many times in disbelief. It’s very hard to come to know and like the characters when they all behave in ways that make no sense. And the sheer number of characters involved was a little ridiculous. What exactly was the purpose of the various groups of thugs who added nothing to the story except some gratuitous action? How exactly does the ‘highest bidder’ proposition put forth make any sense when it’s about a single lump sum ransom payment?
For these and many other reasons, this book failed to satisfy my needs as a reader. But I suppose that it might satisfy readers who enjoy lots of action even if the story behind it is far-fetched at best. show less

This second in the DI Nyree Bradshaw series lives up to the promise that I detected in the first in the series and I'm looking forward to more.

The action in this story is linked to a 20 year old case, and the scenario is very tangled. In addition Nyree's own life becomes tangled as she discovers she has a granddaughter who needs her.

An excellent read.