Gone Missing in the Underground, Review for RORR
Gone Missing in the Underground (A Jessica Tyson Mystery)
by Jerol Anderson
Whiskey Creek Press
Special Agent Jessica Tyson is called in when four people in separate incidents from the Seattle Underground Tour. Jessica sets up home base in the area where the Underground Tour starts, and where a large number of homeless gather.
With the help of a teenager, who’s been in the homeless world before, Jessica is able to see beyond what is really there to capture her suspect. The perfect crime is perfect no longer when the suspect gets caught up in a web of his own deceit.
Gone Missing in the Underground could have been spectacular as the premise was intriguing and one that could have been layered and built to its final conclusion. Instead, I found, that this story was one dimensional and meandered all over the place.
I could connect to any of the characters until the introduction of Melinda, the niece of Jessica’s boyfriend/fiancé. She was the only one who had the depth to draw me in and make me feel for her. Jessica herself is a Special Agent brought on to the force because she can “see” things. And that’s exactly how she describes her own talent, she sees “signs”. The word “signs” is always in quotation marks as if it is something not real. If the heroine really believed in herself and her gifts would she describe it that way? I never get a feeling that Jessica is actually gifted and she really only has two “signs” or sights or whatever you want to call them in the whole book. Which is fine except that is the reason she’s on the case.
Other than not a whole lot happens in the case, or what does happen doesn’t make my heart pound in excitement, nor does it make me care that they have a suspect. There is nothing that makes me want to figure out who did it or even care why. I spent most of the book trying to figure out why Jessica is freaked out about homeless people (and the answer at the end of the book when Melinda asks the same question is not very satisfying), why her boyfriend/fiancé David seems to assume that Jessica should take time off to care for his niece ( a niece that he never even told her he had from a sister he also denied), and how come she seemed so close to Sam (the suspects girlfriend) who she barely even knew at the start of the case and the dealing they did have weren’t that close. These were the things I thought about instead of caring about “who dunnit”.
I believe this book may be second in a series and perhaps if I’d read the first I’d understand more but it needs to stand alone. Gone Missing in the Underground isn’t a bad book, unfortunately there was just nothing in it that spoke to me and pulled me in to the story. It was just there, like a road that runs parallel to the highway but doesn’t actually go anywhere. However, as a dissertation on the plight of the homeless in Seattle I would say it is excellent - I really felt for them. The author has clearly researched both this issue and the area that this story is set.
I give it 3 Ayres
Labels: Rating 3
