To be brief, The Color of Death was not a terrible book--it just also wasn’t a very focused book. At least not until somewhere in the middle did the main conflict stop meandering in and out. I had trouble concentrating for the first half of this book because there seemed to be too much going on despite how seemingly straight-tracked the story progression was. Sure, everything tied together properly, and the suspense and murder mystery was a sure-in from the get-go.

But the different scenes and the different events just felt all-around distracting.

And on top of that, I’m not sure this is Elizabeth Lowell’s best work--not that any of her Rarities Unlimited books have struck me as being all that great to begin with. Now, the previous series, Donovans had drawn my attention, but this is not the place to fawn all over that one.

The Color of Death was a fairly straight forward murder mystery with a little conspiracy on the the side. While there was a lot of politicking and a lot of characters I could care less about, in comparison to the rest of the series, The Color of Death was actually quite to the point. Now, in contrast to the rest of the series, however, I’m not certain I see the connection between this book and the others since the infamous “Rarities Unlimited” company was not present at any point in this book at all--not even a shadow of anyone from previous books appeared.

The Color of Death could just as well have been a stand alone and would have been fine (as fine as it managed to be).

Kate Chandler is personally investigating the disappearance of her half-brother, Lee Mandel, whose case has been blown off as a greedy courier who simply took off with the goods and is now in hiding. Kate believes otherwise and is even fearful that Lee may already be dead and the seven exquisite sapphire pieces he was delivering are now gone.

Sam Groves is an FBI agent who (gasp, surprise, surprise) doesn’t like to follow orders and doesn’t bother to be a team player (there’s always one of them). So he’s on the bad side of his supervisors and when he stumbles across Kate and her ideas that her brother’s case is more than the local authorities will give her the time of day for, his reputation among the higher ups doesn’t get any better.

On top of that, we are in the middle of investigating a string of courier hits wherein precious, priceless items are being stolen. And while this investigation continues on, there are pissing contests between security agencies, courier companies, and the FBI to determine who the culprit is and who’s going to solve this case first.

I’m reminded of a specific piece of dialogue from a book written by one of my other favorite romantic suspense authors. To paraphrase, “these guys are on the same side [...] but they fight about it like dogs trying to decide who’s the alpha.” Everyone is working to solve the same crime and bring down the same criminals, but instead waste more time trying to edge each other out to gain the glory of being “the one who saved the day”, rather than actually getting anything done.

These pissing contests in a lot of romantic suspense novels are amusing until they start getting irritating, really.


I’m not gonna lie. The Color of Death was no different than any standard crime thriller with the addition of sapphire and cutting stone rough as a part of the informational background (the Elizabeth Lowell signature). Otherwise, nothing really outstanding can be said about it. While I prefer to read straight out murder mysteries such as these, this particular book just didn’t hit the right spots.

Of course, when the midpoint came around and we’re finally doing some investigative work worth a damn (whenever these big men start arguing, I’m reminded of little kids pulling on each others hair and stealing each others lollipops), I guess the story managed to pick up and I started enjoying it more without feeling confused, frustrated, or bored. As for the characters… I really could care less about them.

Take it or leave it. This is your standard, typical romantic suspense novel as a murder mystery with the usual tropes. If you love Elizabeth Lowell (yes, that would be me), you’ll read it and be entertained anyway. If you like romantic suspense novels, then this one makes a good rainy-day read. As part of the Rarities Unlimited series, the connection didn’t click and I may have been biased due to confusion. As a stand-alone novel, it actually does quite well for itself as a crime thriller.

If you love Elizabeth Lowell.

As I had mentioned in an earlier post, once I actually thought about it, it was quite noticeable that one of the main conflicts didn’t come around to be presented until about 60% into the book--the reason why Lacey has suddenly been targeted for murder as well as the significance of her grandfather’s paintings. Of course, there was a very glaringly obvious reason (greed for her Granddad’s unsigned paintings), but there was, of course, a very deliberate, underlying conspiracy to the entire ordeal.

Of course there was. Because greed would be too easy of a motive, especially since we learn that the aim of the game was to burn Grandpa Rainbow’s paintings rather than acquire them for money. But just from the summary on the book jacket alone, we are already told that the paintings are much more significant than being priceless works of art. Heck, even the Prologue hints at the paintings being more significant.

It just felt kind of insulting that we didn’t get straight to the point and had to poke around in the dark like the reader didn’t already know what was going down and would be surprised by the reveal.

However, for the first half of the book, we simply follow a series of “unfortunate crimes” all aimed at the paintings Lacey has brought into the light with nothing else to go on. As far as crime thrillers are concerned, there was quite a bit of meandering before we’re even told that there’s something darker stirring among the characters introduced in this book than we’re being lead to believe.

If I had thought that there were too many characters and situations to keep up with in the previous book, Running Scared, this book probably has it beat simply because there were simply too many names, relationships and fuzzy histories in the Savoy family to keep track of. And all of those incidents had to do with people who were already dead and only got a mention in passing.

The story in this book was ridiculously scattered, unlike the previous few books I have read, written by Elizabeth Lowell. There’s enough direction in this book and we all knew where the story was headed; however, the events surrounding the telling meandered so much that it could have been monotonous and boring if not for the fact that I’ve grown a fondness for Ms. Lowell’s work.

So, none of the negatives seemed to keep me from enjoying the book. Lacey Quinn and Ian Lapstrake are an excellent pair together with the right amount of witty fun and heated romance to make me happy enough to continue reading the book. I thoroughly enjoyed them as a couple and an individuals with their own unique personalities of brutal honesty and blunt, straightforward, no-nonsense approaches to all situations.

And the inclusion of Susa Donovan was also a welcome presence. (Finally, a character from the previous series appeared in this series and was actually more significant to the book rather than being filler material.)

The rest of the characters were decidedly flat and unextraordinary in any way. Just as well, whatever mystery there was supposed to be was also quite predictable and a little on the “Why do I care?” side.

To be honest, while the tone of the book felt distinctly romantic suspense, and the telling was on par with the rest of Elizabeth Lowell’s romantic suspenses, the subject matter was consistently contemporary romance until the first attempt on Lacey Quinn’s life about halfway into the book. Then the events remembered that this was supposed to be a crime thriller and so acted accordingly and things started getting a little more exciting.

And for some reason, I can’t find it in myself to be bothered by it.

I guess that’s what it means to have a soft spot for certain authors.

***

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I briefly addressed this point in a brief post on Elizabeth Lowell's fourth book in the Donovan series, Midnight in Ruby Bayou.  I won't rehash my thoughts, but Lacey puts it pretty bluntly here.  And for this, I love her.

As stated before, I understand the need to shield loved ones from brutal knowledge.  But sometimes, when it DOES matter, maybe knowledge is more important than ignorance "for your own good".  Not everyone's a China doll; and sometimes knowing the truth could make the difference between life and death.

As a brief update, while I'm here:

I am really enjoying this book as much as it wanders around from place to place and person to person--I think I hardly noticed that the main conflict didn't even really start until about 60% into the book.  Well played, Ms. Lowell.  I remained entertained for the most part and continue to do so.

Also, it helps that with Lowell's hit-or-miss characters, Ian and Lacey certainly are an interesting pair--refreshingly fun and open would be the right description.  I really like them A LOT.

So Shane Tannahill and Risa Sheridan were introduced in enough detail from the first book in this series, Moving Target, for us to get a pretty good idea about what type of characters they’ll be. Not that I don’t appreciate subtle introductions from one book to another within a series, but there were just some things in the first book that I thought were unnecessary to the book’s plot.

Fortunately for Running Scared we don’t have much unnecessary tangential characters taking up space (although Ian Lapstrake has a strong enough presence for me to wonder about him for the next book, he was significant enough to the plot that it didn’t bother me). Unfortunately for this second book, there was a lot of meandering from plot point to plot point, and character to character, that it took some effort to keep all the plot points and character lines connected properly.

Risa Sheridan is an expert on gold artifacts, working for Shane Tannahill as his personal curator. Shane is the “Golden Boy”, a man who owns a steadily profitable casino and has a soft spot for rare and extraordinary gold pieces, specifically those with great historical value. And, of course, like all romances, the two of them are lusting after each other like crazy (but that’s both an understatement and an obvious plot point that didn’t need to be pointed out). And we also get the obligatory “tragic personal histories” to make life more interesting.

The cast of characters in this story was so plentiful that I stopped caring on multiple occasions about what was going on within this book. My mind played a zig-zag game of “Ooh, this is getting interesting!” to “Hmmm… I don’t really care about you.” I might have been only slightly bemused.

Cherelle Faulkner is Risa’s childhood friend who runs a channeling scam with her boy toy, Tim Seton. The two of them come upon a load of priceless Druidic gold worth over millions and so move on to figure out how to turn their wealth around (at least Cherelle tries to turn her life around with this jackpot while Timmy tags along). A man named Socks joins their little duet because he’s a friend of Tim’s during their prison days. And so off the three of them go to Vegas to find out how best to make the most out of their treasure. All the while Cherelle is stuck in a perpetual envious mindset against her childhood friend for having a more successful life, as well as hanging onto that “I saved her life when she was fifteen so I’m going to squeeze this IOU out for all it’s worth and then some even if it gets her killed” with Risa.

With friends like that, who needs enemies?

Gail Silverado (like the truck, I guess?) and several other casino Big Dogs in Vegas (lots of names, running out of care) band together to take down the Golden Boy because, unlike them, Shane Tannahill doesn’t play dirty with his casino business, erego, making the rest of the crew look bad. And what grates at their egos the most is that Tannahill Inc. seems to be making plenty more monies than everyone else in town without having to resort to laundering dirty stuff through mobs, gangs, black markets… the like.

And then by the end we’ve got the inclusion of Uncle Sam’s “Alphabet Soup” agencies as well as some international politics going on to squeeze out the rest of the story.

Of course, in the middle of all of this chaos are Risa, Shane, and select few Rarities Unlimited staff members.

Somehow, all of this manages to come together as the story meanders around from one character to another and to another, while also managing to include random side tangents featuring one of the male Donavan twins (from the previous series, Donavans), neither of whom made it into their own books, so now must occupy random space in this series. Again, I’m delighted about the references to the previous series, as I feel I like it more so than this one, but really… is it necessary?

Another random side tangent has to do with good ol’ Timmy Seton and some sort of birth secret that sort of played a significant part of the story’s conclusion in Running Scared... but sort of didn’t. I’m still scratching my head on that one, because I guessed it, but can’t decide if I cared enough to care.

Moving along.

Basically this story was all over the place. It was still enjoyable, but with multiple reserves.

And I’m going to be frank. At this point, even if I’m not completely satisfied with any of the six books I’ve read from Elizabeth Lowell so far, for some reason I am utterly drawn to her work. It’s got to be the writing, the witty dialogue, or the characters… or all three. Maybe its even the historical data and interesting information she presents with precious gems, priceless artworks, and things of the like. I’m certainly enjoying the history lessons as well as random facts about the base precious items of each book.

It’s definitely not really the storytelling or the entire stories on their own merits. While some parts have ample amounts of suspense and thrill and other parts have enough intrigue and to hook my interest, the main storylines aren’t exactly outlined in the best way. Some of the books have been great from beginning to end with a few hitches… some just didn’t do too well in the story progression. The premises are great since they’re what’s attracting my attention in the first place. But I can’t help but wish there was a bit more oomph to the actual story versus the plot ideas.

So no matter how badly the stories are turning out (monotonous, meandering, haphazard, good, fine, put together, suspenseful, fun, or select few of these traits or all of the above), I’m still finding these books all enjoyable and interesting.

Fortunately for Running Scared, the characters are well developed and interesting and I liked them a lot. Shane and Risa are definitely an interesting pair, which I’m relieved about since the Erik/Serena couple from Moving Target gave me pause.

It’s hit or miss with these characters in an Elizabeth Lowell book; I either really like them a lot, or I think they’re too flat and require more personality or something, or that their personalities aren’t presented with the most impact despite how great they sound on paper.


Oh, also as a postscript aside:

There were paranormal aspects in this book. There is no explanation as to why there are paranormal aspects or why only certain people are influenced by this paranormal aspect. It just kind of shows up at random through this book, such as in Cherelle’s channeling abilities that are shown at the beginning of the book and then just disappears, mentioned in passing once or twice as if it were just another personal trait of hers, part of a background check.

For all the significance these paranormal elements are lending the storyline, I’m drawing a big ol’ question mark as to why they’re even present in the first place aside from propelling certain plot points as a deus ex machina or something like that.

I wasn't expecting a paranormal element to play a part in this book, but it was pretty much the first thing that hits you in the face with the prologue featuring Serena's mysterious grandmother (endearingly referred to as "G'mom" throughout by Serena of which I wasn't sure how to pronounce, so I went with a very crass sounding gee mom). The Book of the Learned as well as some mystic properties of Lisbeth Charters' family heritage is presented front and center. It's an interesting concept to incorporate the superstitions of old age that included magic and sorcery, then pass it down along generations of a line to be presented as a base premise in the modern day story line. Like I said, it wasn't what I was expecting, but then again, there was never a rule that said we couldn't mix genres.

In this case, the book read more like a paranormal/fantasy romance rather than a romantic suspense despite there being elements of suspense. It was just a bit more mellow than the typical romantic suspense novel I'm used to reading.

Serena Charters' grandmother is murdered because of The Book of the Learned, an ancient manuscript passed down through her family that many wish to possess. With only four leaves of this book and a cryptic message from her grandmother, Serena must find the rest of the book as well as dodge a killer. Erik North is an expert on medieval manuscripts, working for Rarities Unlimited as a consultant in appraising the worth of priceless works. He is sought out by Serena to determine the worth of her grandmother's pages.

As the book progresses, both she and Erik seem to be in possession of memories (or flashes, or visions) that may belong to the original creators of The Book of the Learned, Erik the Learned who wrote the book, and Serena of Silverfells whose line the book ends up passing down to each firstborn daughter.

While there was still that underlying murder mystery and a silently implied race against time to find this murderer, the feeling of urgency just wasn't very present. So as a crime thriller, the book wasn't exactly top rate. However, despite Elizabeth Lowell's admission that The Book of the Learned--used in the book as a major plot device--is not real, I still really enjoyed learning various details of medieval art forms (scattered as they were). While it is known that manuscripts and textiles can be priceless depending on their origin, it's just something you never really think about since we have mass produced literature and the like. Such common objects such as blankets, wall hangings, rugs... One never really stops and thinks that dependent on origin, certain items in this category could be appraised as being as precious as stones and gems.

I enjoy Ms. Lowell's insight into this type of information. While it doesn't take away from the story itself, it doesn't necessarily add much to it either, because I've noted that the book tended to meander in a lot of directions--whether or not those directions ended up being significant to the plot is questionable.

There was a lot of goings-on with the staff of Rarities Unlimited, and we even jump to explore an introductory of Risa Sheridan and Shane Tanehill, both of whom will be the stars of the next book with their own part of the story to be told. Of course, we only touch base briefly with each of the side and supporting characters; they were presented in a smooth enough manner that it didn't really bother me or make me wonder why it was important to mention certain scenarios.

Of course, that doesn't mean that there weren't insignificant tangents.

Specifically, there was the single, random chapter guest starring three of the Donovan siblings from her previous series Donovans. A pleasantly surprising appearance, but kind of out of the blue and inconsequential as to whether or not there was a reason for their presence aside from "just because the author can". I'm not so much complaining; it was just a strange, random segway. Because while I did enjoy reading about the Donovans, and I understand that some authors become attached to characters previously created, there comes a time when you really DO have to let go (unless some occasion in the current story line calls for their necessary appearance; this was not one of those occasions). Mention them in passing if you must, but giving them a full, insignificant chapter for no reason other than to give them a chance to make their presence... kind of unnecessary.

Nonetheless, I really did enjoy the book.

My only real quibble about it is the romance, which felt more or less forced. Not that the romance itself was forced between Serena and Erik; obviously the two of them are drawn to each other and do care about one another. But the fact that there is some sort of higher presence that seemed to be propelling their attraction makes it hard to determine whether they are acting as their own, present-day persons, or if it was that unexplainable "meant to be" phenomenon passed down from their historical namesakes at play.

I'm not big on the "fated" epic loves. This one was handled well, but it still seemed a little... well, hard to grasp.