Biting the Moon

Warning: This book contains graphic animal cruelty and has little to no resolution at the end.
Grimes' main character is an amnesiac who likes to rescue animals. She and her new friend go on a journey to figure out what happened to her and why she can't remember it. The trip is suspenseful, but it's a little bit mystifying how two girls, neither of whom have a drivers' license or even know how to drive, can make it from Santa Fe to the middle of Idaho without getting pulled over.
I found myself rushing through to find out what has happened, but I think I might have missed something because lots of it didn't make sense. I really liked Grimes' Hotel Paradise, but everything I've read by her since then hasn't been as entertaining. This show more book does have a sequel, though, so hopefully there will be some resolution there. show less

I enjoyed this story of two young girls on a journey of self discovery. Andi, amnesiac and avenging angel, brings the orphaned Mary along on her road to retribution. Set in the early 1990's, some of the plot hinges on the unlikely but its secondary to the characters anyway. The recurring theme of "I didn't want to know - but now you do" forces the reader to face both animal and human cruelty. Some of the questions raised by Andi's amnesia are not fully resolved and not all threads are neatly tied with a bow by the end of the book but there are enough hints given that the reader can surmise the rest. I am off to amazon in search of the sequel, "Dakota".

An unusual novel that places a possibly abused amnesiac teenager at the center of a dual crusade to discover her own identity and what happened to her, and to halt illegal dogfights and "canned" endangered-animal hunts in rural Idaho. The dogfight and canned-hunt scenes are very unsettling, probably difficult to read even if you don't identify with animal rightists. The main character, who calls herself Annie, and her newfound friend Mary are creatively drawn and believable, despite the sometimes implausible plot, but the bad guys are unconvincingly awful--one is not just a child molester but an animal-abuser-for-profit and a wifebeater too. I believe that people can be this horrible, but Grimes unfortunately doesn't make her villians show more into more than caricatured monsters. show less

A young girl awakens in a hotel room with no recollection of who she is or how she got there. This is a very smart and tough protagonist. If you liked the Lisbeth Salander character, you will like this one. The first in a series, it starts off with a bang!

I was decidedly underwhelmed. Much of the events just didn't make any sense, and when a main character leaves the story, the things that happen afterwards don't seem to fit in the story. This is the first Martha Grimes book I've read, and I'm not inclined to pick up another.