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thepickygirl's review
Clare Vengel is back again in Robin Spano’s sequel to Death Plays Poker. Now an FBI agent, Clare is called to go undercover when a U.S. Senator’s daughter dies. Though Sasha’s death is ruled a suicide, Senator Martha Westlake, also campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination, doesn’t believe her daughter killed herself. With enough clout to call in the FBI, Martha expects results but also begins doing her own digging to determine what happened.
As Clare embroils herself in the snowboarding culture of Whistler, she learns that drug running is hot business and that Sasha likely had several people who wanted her dead. She also learns that Sasha may have had other motives than drug money and counter culture.
Clare is an odd protagonist. At times, she’s incredibly childish – painting herself into corners with her boyfriend and her boss – yet she also makes it clear she’s not a child, doing things for the job that shock and anger those around her. She also doesn’t seem to be an incredible undercover agent, allowing herself to become wrapped up in the people and the place she’s assigned without keen observation or detection. But what the reader discovers each time is that Clare’s assumption of her role is exactly what makes her successful, even if it puts her in danger at times.
As always, Spano’s sharp storytelling and economical prose quickly grabbed my attention. What sets her apart even further, however, is her expert handling of multiple perspectives, exploring the quirky citizens of Whistler and their motives without judgment. She also does an excellent job of providing readers with characters we should like – Clare, Martha, Noah – who are pretty awful at times, and characters we should dislike or suspect and making them sympathetic and likable. Thus, when the denouement occurs, there’s an uneasy feeling as the reader holds his or her breath, waiting to find the identity of the culprit.
As Clare embroils herself in the snowboarding culture of Whistler, she learns that drug running is hot business and that Sasha likely had several people who wanted her dead. She also learns that Sasha may have had other motives than drug money and counter culture.
Clare is an odd protagonist. At times, she’s incredibly childish – painting herself into corners with her boyfriend and her boss – yet she also makes it clear she’s not a child, doing things for the job that shock and anger those around her. She also doesn’t seem to be an incredible undercover agent, allowing herself to become wrapped up in the people and the place she’s assigned without keen observation or detection. But what the reader discovers each time is that Clare’s assumption of her role is exactly what makes her successful, even if it puts her in danger at times.
As always, Spano’s sharp storytelling and economical prose quickly grabbed my attention. What sets her apart even further, however, is her expert handling of multiple perspectives, exploring the quirky citizens of Whistler and their motives without judgment. She also does an excellent job of providing readers with characters we should like – Clare, Martha, Noah – who are pretty awful at times, and characters we should dislike or suspect and making them sympathetic and likable. Thus, when the denouement occurs, there’s an uneasy feeling as the reader holds his or her breath, waiting to find the identity of the culprit.
toastx2's review
4.0
Read this book. It was very enjoyable.. Now – With that stated….
————-
The following public service announcement was NOT brought you by Robin Spano and ECW Press (Though they did provide me a free review copy of this book).
The mixed reaction people feel to a train wreck is commonly kept a secret. Publicly, you say ‘Oh gee, how terrible, I hope no one got hurt’. Internally you have a rapid blink response to the tail lights ahead of you, initial reaction being ‘Ooh! Was that blood? I hope that is Blood!’. You know that things are not as they should be, that problems are occurring, that someone has thoroughly screwed the pooch. You keep looking, craning your neck hoping for a glimpse of the problem while ambivalently hoping everyone is safe. This book is like a spectacular and awesome train wreck.
So what is it about? What did I think? In Death’s Last Run, Vengel who was recently made a US FBI Agent, is pulled back to Canada to work a dual RCMP/FBI case. This Case is set in a Canadian Ski town, tracking the dead daughter of a US Presidential hopeful. It is a toss up between murder and suicide, with Clare integral to infiltrating a close knit group of stoners, drunks, ski bums and acid heads. She rooms with some suspects, does some drugs and breaks some rules. She takes up snowboarding, drinks micro brews, sniffs out clues and takes ridiculous risks to get the job done.
The overall plot was solid, flipping back and forth in classic Spano style from the perspectives of suspects, police, and alternate characters. As per the norm, whodunnit spoilers do not exist and the novel is crafted well and allows you to enjoy it with out having the entire plot handed to you on a platter. I grew to like and understand the bad guys,and “understood” the motives better than I ever could in a Sherlock Holmes book.
But enough about the novel, let’s get back to Clare herself..”The Trainwreck”-
Clare Vengel of the ‘Clare Vengel Undercover’ series is a spiteful, clumsy, juvenile, backward, unreasonable, messed up woman with literal daddy issues. Her inability to exist in the world and share a grain of truthful emotion is frustrating. She treats her boyfriend like an enemy; her FBI and RCMP colleagues similarly, with unbridled unprofessional distaste; her family and friends are ignored because she cannot get over.. Never mind, you get the point.
When I saw this wreck, there was no stopping me driving by. I wanted to see it. I opted to pick up the novel and lovingly gawp at the greatness of another Vengel story. For readers of the previous novels, you will find that Clare is seemingly worse than before, uncontrollably juvenile at points, taking pages from all of the world’s angsty teenage stereotypes. She drove me CRAZY. I wanted to see blood. Externally I cared to see Clare succeed in her current case; Internally I really was scoping for blood at the crash site, wanting to see a body part or two and red clotted snow.
I kept hoping for her to falter, hoped the universe would slap a cluepon down onto her lap. In the end, as with the train wreck, when i see that she comes out okay in the end, i forget about the instinctive need to view a corpse and am instead glad to see she came out on top, as always.
Clare Vengel.. I hope you continue to succeed in your escapades, regardless of the desire to see people line up and smack you to sense like on the 1980 movie Airplane!.
--
xpost RawBlurb.com
————-
The following public service announcement was NOT brought you by Robin Spano and ECW Press (Though they did provide me a free review copy of this book).
The mixed reaction people feel to a train wreck is commonly kept a secret. Publicly, you say ‘Oh gee, how terrible, I hope no one got hurt’. Internally you have a rapid blink response to the tail lights ahead of you, initial reaction being ‘Ooh! Was that blood? I hope that is Blood!’. You know that things are not as they should be, that problems are occurring, that someone has thoroughly screwed the pooch. You keep looking, craning your neck hoping for a glimpse of the problem while ambivalently hoping everyone is safe. This book is like a spectacular and awesome train wreck.
So what is it about? What did I think? In Death’s Last Run, Vengel who was recently made a US FBI Agent, is pulled back to Canada to work a dual RCMP/FBI case. This Case is set in a Canadian Ski town, tracking the dead daughter of a US Presidential hopeful. It is a toss up between murder and suicide, with Clare integral to infiltrating a close knit group of stoners, drunks, ski bums and acid heads. She rooms with some suspects, does some drugs and breaks some rules. She takes up snowboarding, drinks micro brews, sniffs out clues and takes ridiculous risks to get the job done.
The overall plot was solid, flipping back and forth in classic Spano style from the perspectives of suspects, police, and alternate characters. As per the norm, whodunnit spoilers do not exist and the novel is crafted well and allows you to enjoy it with out having the entire plot handed to you on a platter. I grew to like and understand the bad guys,and “understood” the motives better than I ever could in a Sherlock Holmes book.
But enough about the novel, let’s get back to Clare herself..”The Trainwreck”-
Clare Vengel of the ‘Clare Vengel Undercover’ series is a spiteful, clumsy, juvenile, backward, unreasonable, messed up woman with literal daddy issues. Her inability to exist in the world and share a grain of truthful emotion is frustrating. She treats her boyfriend like an enemy; her FBI and RCMP colleagues similarly, with unbridled unprofessional distaste; her family and friends are ignored because she cannot get over.. Never mind, you get the point.
When I saw this wreck, there was no stopping me driving by. I wanted to see it. I opted to pick up the novel and lovingly gawp at the greatness of another Vengel story. For readers of the previous novels, you will find that Clare is seemingly worse than before, uncontrollably juvenile at points, taking pages from all of the world’s angsty teenage stereotypes. She drove me CRAZY. I wanted to see blood. Externally I cared to see Clare succeed in her current case; Internally I really was scoping for blood at the crash site, wanting to see a body part or two and red clotted snow.
I kept hoping for her to falter, hoped the universe would slap a cluepon down onto her lap. In the end, as with the train wreck, when i see that she comes out okay in the end, i forget about the instinctive need to view a corpse and am instead glad to see she came out on top, as always.
Clare Vengel.. I hope you continue to succeed in your escapades, regardless of the desire to see people line up and smack you to sense like on the 1980 movie Airplane!.
--
xpost RawBlurb.com
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