{"id":1935,"date":"2016-07-08T07:02:00","date_gmt":"2016-07-08T14:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/?p=1935"},"modified":"2016-07-08T07:02:00","modified_gmt":"2016-07-08T14:02:00","slug":"from-morning-sickness-to-mortal-danger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/?p=1935","title":{"rendered":"From morning sickness to mortal danger"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’re all blessed\u00a0when Bob Moyer takes time out from his world travels, drama, poetry and petanque to review some books.<\/p>\n

Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer<\/p>\n

MOST WANTED. By Lisa Scottoline. Delacorte Press. 438 pages. $27.99<\/p>\n

Chances are Raymond Chandler\u2019s Phillip Marlowe never\u00a0had a \u201cbest friend forever\u201d who \"Wanted\"<\/a>said \u201cRuh-ro\u201d like Scooby Doo. Never did we hear Dashiell Hammett\u2019s Sam Spade \u201cchirp\u201d his suburban sedan doors open and closed. And Ross Macdonald\u2019s Lew Archer certainly never put together a classroom bulletin board.<\/p>\n

None of them were ever pregnant, either.<\/p>\n

Lisa Scottoline\u2019s Christine Nilsson does all three of the former, and is the latter. She may be the first elementary school reading specialist in the history of mystery to become an amateur sleuth. After years of trying to get pregnant, she and her husband decide to use a sperm donor. At her retirement party, she glances at the TV screen in the teacher\u2019s lounge, and sees the picture of a suspected serial killer \u2014who looks like her sperm donor.<\/p>\n

Now, two mysteries immediately emerge. First, is he her sperm donor?\u00a0 But, second, since this is page nine, how can the author possibly come up with enough obstacles to that question\u2019s answer to fill the remaining 429 pages?<\/p>\n

With a page-turning flurry, that\u2019s how. Our amateur gumshoe swings into highly entertaining if also highly improbable action. In short order, she poses as a journalist, falls for the guy\u2019s line, hires him a lawyer, gets a job as a paralegal, troops through crime scenes, confronts suspects and puts up with the worst whining husband in the world.<\/p>\n

Along the way, Scottoline slips in boilerplate indictment of the sperm donor industry, and supplies mind-numbing details of an elementary teacher\u2019s routine that sound as though she\u2019s been storing them up in a notebook.<\/p>\n

As the story hurtles to a conclusion, Christine moves from morning sickness to mortal danger. Neither she nor the reader sees the curve that comes up at the end, but the reader can see the husband\u2019s redemption coming a mile away. Scottoline readers will be satisfied with her fast-paced action, in spite of some of the cardboard characters and improbable occupations she takes up. The rest of just wish she would stop \u201cchirping\u201d her car doors locked and unlocked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’re all blessed\u00a0when Bob Moyer takes time out from his world travels, drama, poetry and petanque to review some books. Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer MOST WANTED. By Lisa Scottoline. Delacorte Press. 438 pages. $27.99 Chances are Raymond Chandler\u2019s Phillip Marlowe never\u00a0had a \u201cbest friend forever\u201d who said \u201cRuh-ro\u201d like Scooby Doo. Never did we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,14],"tags":[871,872,208],"class_list":["post-1935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mysteries","category-thriller-suspense","tag-lisa-scottoline","tag-sperm-banks","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1935"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1937,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1935\/revisions\/1937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}