Isolation by Mary Anna Evans

Faye Longchamp Mystery #9
Available August 4, 2015 from Poisoned Pen Press

Genre: Mystery
Rating: **** (4 of 5 stars)

***NOTE: I received a free review copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review***

Another series I started in the middle – I really need to stop doing that! While you don’t need to have read the first 8 books in the series to enjoy Isolation, I think it would be better to read the earlier books first. There were several references I didn’t fully understand, but nothing that really impacted the mystery at hand. I would have liked to better understand the nuances of the relationship between Faye and her husband Joe, so I may have to go back and read some of the earlier books…..

Faye Longchamp lives on a small island with her family. Going to the mainland for breakfast one morning, her husband and recently-released-from-jail father-in-law find a local woman dead in the water off her restaurant’s pier. Fearing that her father-in-law might make an easy scapegoat, Faye starts looking into the murder

This book started out slow, and I wasn’t sure I was going to like it. In the beginning of the story, we learn that Faye has recently suffered a miscarriage, and she’s having trouble coming to terms with the loss. Faye muddles around in a haze for several chapters, but as she starts to come back to herself, the book picks up pace as well. Once it gets going and you look back on the slow beginning, you can see that it is fitting considering Faye’s state of mind. I’m glad I didn’t give up during the slow part, because it finished up as a quick-moving, can’t-stop-until-I-know-who-did-it mystery.

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