Thursday, January 10, 2013

Review - The Refuge

Title: The Refuge
Author: Sue Henry
Publisher: Signet (March 4, 2008)
Format: Paperback; Pgs 288
Genre: I have absolutely no idea
Source: Library
Series: Maxie and Stretch #3

Somewhere in the middle of this Hawaiian travelogue, it must have dawned on Sue Henry that she was supposed to be writing a mystery. Literally, you are half way through this book before anything that even slightly smacks of a mystery appears. Grated, early on they find a hand towel stuffed into a drainpipe, but really, who can base a mystery on that.

Maxie McNabb has left her beloved pooch Stretch at home in Homer, Alaska while she sets off to help an old friend tie up loose ends in Hawaii. Maxie spends most of the year traveling around the lower 48 in her motor home but figures Hawaii would just be another sort of adventure. Little did she know that Karen was up to her eyeballs in a questionable deal that has Maxie and her helper Jerry being followed around the island.

It is not until the very end, when you are convinced that you have just wasted innumerable hours trying to figure out the point to this book, that the conclusion to the mystery unfolds. Sadly, the mystery seems to come across as a last ditch attempt to add a bit of intrigue - you find out that certain players in this Laurel and Hardy escapade are not who you think they are.

If you are looking for a typical murder mystery, like her previous books, this is not it. This is a wild goose chase around Hilo that reads more like a travel brochure.

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