Stalking Susan Review

I'm heading off for a one-week vacation today, so I need some quality reading material to take along. Somewhere on the net, I found a review by the Chicago Tribune that said, "Readers who enjoy Janet Evanovich will soon be stalking Julie Kramer." That sounded intriguing to me. I like Janet Evanovich, especially her outrageously funny Stephanie Plum series. So I went on-line to my local library, found the Julie Kramer books, and checked them all out.

Stalking Susan is the first book of the series. I jumped in fully expecting to find laugh-out-loud antics and witty dialogue. Um, not so. I guess the Evanovich novels weren't Stephanie Plum stories but rather Alex Barnaby.

I was disappointed that the Kramer novel wasn't funny. But that's where the disappointment ended. Stalking Susan was a great story. It started with Riley Spartz, a TV reporter in a major story slump. Her retired cop friend, Garnett, passed her a tip on a couple of cold cases he was never able to solve. They involved women named Susan who were raped and strangled on November 19th, one in 1991 and the other in 1992.
As a plot devise, I found this scenario engaging. Immediately, I was pulled into the investigation, hoping Riley would be able to find enough information to televise a story about it. Then, if all went well, the local police would re-open the cases and solve them. I won't give away the ending, but nothing went as planned for Riley, and her life was endangered several times (as you'd expect).

I thoroughly enjoyed Stalking Susan and have the next three books packed for my trip. If you like a good mystery, check them out.

-Sonja