Member Reviews
It's been too long since Charlotte Hinger's last Lottie Albright mystery. She is so adept at combining fascinating Kansas history with her mysteries that I never want to miss reading a single one. Only one thing prevented Fractured Families from being one of my best reads of the year: the killer was so obvious and over-the-top to me. Fortunately, there is much more to the book than whodunit-- and I loved the rest.
Carleton County-- dubbed by one character as "the Bermuda Triangle for crime"-- can be counted as a character in Hinger's books. The weather usually makes its presence felt, this time as a ground blizzard that will have you reaching for extra blankets and thinking about the thermostat as you turn the pages.
Two characters (besides Kansas) were stand-outs for me: Franklin Slocum, the young boy who wrote the commonplace book, and Aunt Dorothy "That's why I'm on the bestseller list" Mercer. The life that Franklin had to endure broke my heart, and Dorothy's skills and personality made me laugh while I admired her.
If you're like me and enjoy crime fiction with a strong dose of history, you simply cannot go wrong with Charlotte Hinger's Lottie Albright mysteries. I hope to be reading them for a good long time.
FRACTURED FAMILIES BY CHARLOTTE HINGER
The weather is freezing and Lottie Albright who is the under-sheriff is visiting The Garden of Eden with her husband's Aunt Dorothy who is a best selling mystery writer. The Garden of Eden is one of Eight Wonder's of Kansas. Aunt Dorothy is visiting and she wants to see all of the tourist attractions. Dorothy wants to look in the mausoleum of Samuel Dinsmoor who was a civil war soldier who created The Garden of Eden. He is in a glassed in coffin lying in a state of perfect preservation. When Dorothy goes into the mausoleum she discovers a murdered young man. Since Lottie is in the midst of setting up a regional crime center which she will be in charge of. Since she is the under sheriff it is her job to deal with this murder.
Lottie places a call to Frank Dimon who is the KBI agent assigned to this region and he tells her to call Sheriff John Winthrop who is the sheriff of Winthrop County. Lottie tells Frank that she will call Sheriff Winthrop and she does. Sheriff Winthrop tells Lottie that he will bring a team and be right there, but as Lottie knew would happen he tells her that his team can not handle the forensics so he calls Frank Dimon from KBI who wants to cover all jurisdictional possibilities. Lottie also calls Sam the sheriff that Lottie is under sheriff to since the Northwest Kansas Regional Crime Center is based in his office.
While they are processing the crime scene they look up and see a frozen baby in the arms of a tall statue called Reaching woman. Lottie is told by KBI that since Lottie is going to be the director of the North West Regional crime center she is to lead the investigation. Lottie picks her husband Keith who is Sam's Deputy, her twin sister Josie who is a psychologist, and her Aunt Dorothy. Forensics is processing the crime scene.
I really enjoyed Lottie and her family as they solved crime with a serial killer. I thought the writing was well done and the characters were well developed. I did not guess who the killer was and I liked the fast paced action and the ending was excellent. I hope to read more by this author and more of Lottie and her family since her Regional Crime Center is up and running. A taut suspenseful mystery and a riveting plot.
Thank you to Net Galley, Charlotte Hinger and Poison Pen Press for my digital copy for a fair and honest review.
I don't post negative reviews so I will not be sharing my review publicly.