Book Review: The Jaime Quinn Mysteries

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Reluctant lawyer, Jamie Quinn, still reeling from the death of her mother, is pulled into a game of deception, jealousy, and vengeance when her cousin, Adam, is wrongfully accused of murder. It’s up to Jamie to find the real murderer before it’s too late. It doesn’t help that the victim is a former rock star with more enemies than friends, or that Adam confessed to a murder he didn’t commit.

GoodReads

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Reluctant lawyer, Jamie Quinn, has returned to her family law practice after a hiatus due to the death of her mother. It’s business as usual until a bitter divorce case turns into a murder investigation, and Jamie’s client becomes the prime suspect. When she can’t untangle truth from lies, Jamie enlists the help of Duke Broussard, her favorite private investigator, to try to clear her client’s name. And she’s hoping that, in his spare time, he can help her find her long-lost father…

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There’s big trouble in the park system. Someone is making life difficult for Jamie Quinn’s boyfriend, Kip Simons, the new director of Broward County parks. Was it the angry supervisor passed over for promotion? The disgruntled employee Kip recently fired? Or someone with a bigger ax to grind? If Jamie can’t figure it out soon, she may be looking for a new boyfriend because there’s a dead guy in the park and Kip has gone missing! With the help of her favorite P.I., Duke Broussard, Jamie must race the clock to find Kip before it’s too late.

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REVIEW

Hands down, The Jaime Quinn Mysteries are one of my favorite series to date!  Let me explain ...

I read.  I read a lot.  A.  LOT.  Quite a number of the books I read are the free days authors have sometimes on Amazon as a way to introduce new readers to their works.  So I read them.  Then I want to read the rest of the series as well.  But the catch is, the cliff-hanger at the end of the books is huge that I am disappointed that I cannot continue into the next book right away.

That is where Ms. Venkataraman's Jamie Quinn Mysteries shine.  I was concerned at the outset of each installment that they would not be long enough to provide a fully fleshed-out story, but I was wrong.  Each book provides more than enough dialog and action to form a complete tale, and I was satisfied at the end of each book.  The story ends had been tied together (sometimes even in a bow!)  And, while each book could be read alone quite nicely, there is enough of a tease of foreshadowing to let the reader know that all had not yet been revealed.

In Death by Digeridoo, I appreciated the author's sensitivity to the story of Adam, a young man with autism, whose statement, "I did a bad thing," was taken as a confession by the local police when they find him standing over the body of his music teacher.  And it Jaime's own story was encouraging as well.  In a funk since her mother had passed away, Adam's need brought her out of that miasma and back to the land of the living.

The Case of the Killer Divorce highlights the character, Duke Broussard, a former client of Jaime's.  As Jaime has already reconnected with a high-school beau of hers (Kip), Duke adds a nice tension to the story.  It's probably good that he shortened his name to Duke from Marmaduke.  (The only other Marmaduke I know is a cartoon strip dog.)  And if there's ever a case of a client working against their lawyer, this is it.

Peril in the Park winds up the trio of books I was happy to read.  Kip and Jaime have gone from touchy-feely to comfy-cozy.  But the politics at Kip's government position are stifling at best and downright dangerous a majority of the time.  Collusion, cover-ups, petty jealousies and backbiting are the order of the day, it seems.  Bodies (of the not live variety) keep showing up in parks and then Kip goes missing.  So, Jaime has to turn to Duke (yay! more of that tension!) for more help, in order to find Kip before it's too late.  For a while I even wondered which one Jamie would choose.

So.  You can buy each book individually.  Or you can get the boxed set (or the larger e-file).  Each story is not long, but definitely satisfying.  In my opinion, the books to not have to be read in order but I think it's human nature to want order and when one is presented, to follow from point A to point B.  The set is only $2.99 on Amazon as of about 5 minutes ago.  Get it, read it, love it.  And save a space on your shelf (or in your e-reader) for the next Jaime Quinn Mystery, which is in the works!

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Blog * GoodReads

Award-winning author, Barbara Venkataraman is an attorney and mediator specializing in family law and debt collection.

She is the author of “Teatime with Mrs. Grammar Person”; “The Fight for Magicallus,” a children’s fantasy; a humorous short story entitled, “If You’d Just Listened to Me in the First Place”; and two books of humorous essays: “I’m Not Talking about You, Of Course” and “A Trip to the Hardware Store & Other Calamities,” which are part of the “Quirky Essays for Quirky People” series. Both books of humorous essays won the “Indie Book of the Day” award.

Her latest works are “Death by Didgeridoo,” first in the Jamie Quinn series, “The Case of the Killer Divorce,” the second Jamie Quinn mystery, and, just out, “Peril in the Park,” the latest in the popular Jamie Quinn series. Coming soon, “Engaged in Danger”–the next Jamie Quinn mystery!

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Today is the tour kick-off and by clicking the graphic just above you can to go the tour schedule page, where you will find more reviews, as well as interviews and guest posts.  You can even find out about becoming a reviewer for Great Escapes yourself!

(Disclaimer:  I received a copy of the set of books from the author and publishers via Great Escapes Virtual Book Tours in exchange for my honest and unbiased review only.)