Anne Frasier

Anne Frasier is the pen name of Theresa Weir, widely known for her excellent memoir, The Orchard. Her fiction stands out, in my opinion, for her deep and compassionate understanding of physic pain.

This is the fourth book in a detective series featuring homicide detectives Elise Sandburg and David Gould. It is set in Savannah, and is richly atmospheric.

As the story begins, Elise and David are called back to Savannah from Chicago; they had both been fired after their last case. The Savannah show more medical examiner, John Casper, asked them to come back unofficially and help him with a new case. They agree because John is also a personal friend: “John was the good kind of family. The kind that wasn’t blood.”

Bodies of children have been found in a house slated for demolition. The house was once occupied by a murderer, Frank Remy, who was put in prison by Elise’s father Jackson Sweet. Remy reputedly died there 36 years before. Making the case more disturbing, the m.o. is similar to that of a serial killer terrorizing Florida.

Returning to Savannah, especially for a case involving dead children, brings up all sorts of ghosts for Elise and David.

David lost his own child to murder, and Elise had been captured and tortured in Savannah by a psychopath named Atticus Tremain who was never caught. The case pushes emotional buttons for both of them.

Meanwhile, the police decide to exhume Remy’s body to see if the DNA matches any of the DNA on the bodies inside the wall, and then all hell breaks loose. Not only Elise and David but everyone they love is in danger.

Discussion: As in previous books, the author closely captures the feelings of people who are dealing with loss and/or agonizing memories. She shows how hurt, loneliness, and shame can translate into a pain that is physical.

Evaluation: The colorful setting of Savannah; the appealing but troubled protagonists and the chemistry between them; and the suspense that builds to a fever pitch make a winning combination. I definitely look forward to more volumes in this series. show less

FOUND OBJECT was an excellent thriller with an intriguing and vulnerable main character. Jupiter Bellarose is an investigative journalist who was hospitalized for depression after an undercover assignment went wrong. She never expected to fall in love with the subject of her investigation nor to watch him commit suicide by walking into the ocean and swimming away.

Jupiter's editor offers her a puff piece about a cosmetics company turning 100 to get her back into journalism. But doing the show more story will take her back to Savannah which was the site of her life's greatest tragedy. When Jupiter was sixteen, her mother television star Marie Nova was murdered and dismembered. A man was convicted of the crime but Jupiter still has questions and isn't convinced that he was guilty.

Detective Ian Griffin whose first day on the job was marred by discovering the dismembered body of Marie Nova also still has questions. He and Jupiter get together to investigate and, somehow, Marie finds her two investigations coming together.

Marie Nova was the face of Lumet, the cosmetics company Jupiter is supposed to be writing about. As Jupiter uncovers things the company doesn't want the public to know like radioactive face cream and face creams with human fat as a part of the formula, she also learns more about her mother's death.

Jupiter has always feared that her father who was estranged from her mother finally snapped and murdered her. And she learns that he has always feared that Jupiter had a sleepwalking session and murdered her mother since he was sent a recording of his car at the scene of the crime and knows he wasn't the one driving it.

This was an engaging and twisty thriller about a woman nearly drowning in guilt about a case gone wrong who is also determined to finally find out the truth about her mother's death. The narrators did an excellent job with the story. show less

Promising start to a series, set in Savannah, that walks the line between police procedural and supernatural thriller.

'Play Dead' is the start of a series of books about Elise Sandburg, a homicide detective with the Savannah Police Department. In this first book, Elise is investigating instances of apparently people waking up on the coroner's slab and dying shortly afterwards. Elise gets the woo woo work because legend has it that she is the daughter of a famous root doctor and that she was show more found abandoned in an ancient Low Country cemetery.

I found it refreshing that, from the start, nobody thought these were really zombies. Which is not to say that a root doctor may not have been involved but if they are, they'll be found by detective work, not magic.

Elise Sandberg knows about root spell the way a lapsed Catholic knows about transubstantiation: she can describe the ceremonies and the intent, knows that it has power for others, doesn't buy-in to herself but accepts its presence as part of her identity.

For me, much of the appeal of the book was that it was filled with credible characters with real lives, albeit exotic ones. Elise is a mother as well as a detective and her relationships with her teenage daughter, and with her ex-husband and his new wife are well-drawn. Her new partner, an ex-FBI agent and a Northerner, has a traumatic past, a bleak present and may not have much of a future. The victims and bad guys, who are sometimes the same people, are complicated and human.

The plot had enough puzzle in it to make things interesting without putting the characters in the shade and Savannah provides a unique setting that feels authentic.

'Play Dead' was an entertaining read that made me want to read more in the series. show less

I had some major issues with this book. It probably doesn't help that I'm pregnant with my first child and reading this book was like scraping every raw nerve and exposing every fear I've ever had as a mom-to-be. But aside from my emotional issues coming into play, I found the plot rather contrived and coincidental. I also didn't much care for the characters. Max's instant dislike of Ivy grated on my nerves, as did Ethan's sudden initial hatred of his step-father for no good reason that I show more could see. Sure, maybe it's a realistic portrayal of a teenager's behaviour, but I still had to grit my teeth every time his character showed up on the page. Ultimately, I struggled to finish this book show less