Review: An all-around fun caper!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 19, 2013
REVIEWED BY KATIETHE ESCAPE DIARIES is definitely a caper! It has action, suspense, more than one murder attempt, oh yeah and some romance. Mazie is wrongfully convicted of her husband's murder and sentenced to life in prison. With marital issues, a cheating husband and a pending divorce, not to mention a nanny cam catching the whole crime on tape, Mazie gets pinned with the unsavory label of "killer."I liked the way this book was set up. We start with Mazie escaping prison during her tomato-picking shift colliding with a horrible tornado. While fleeing and sleeping in the woods, we get some backstory of her deceased husband, Kip. I almost started to like the guy before I remembered that he was dead and he did a lot of cheating on his wife, not to mention some other things that get unearthed later on.Mazie is definitely a survivor, and she does what it takes to escape the police and anyone else that comes in her way. She's learned some tricks of the trade from her former cellmates on how to steal from garage sales, flirt her way out of a farm/chicken wire situation, and lift van keys right out of a woman's purse. The movieThe Fugitive [Blu-ray] is Mazie's inspiration for figuring out who actually killed her husband. That's when things start getting interesting! Mazie falls in manure, gets her hand slashed open, hair caught on fire, drugged, buried alive, trusts the wrong people, doesn't trust the right ones... She goes through so much that I couldn't help but feel like I would have rolled over and given up or walked right up to U.S. Marshall Irving Katz with my hands above my head!Surprisingly, the majority of civilians rally behind Mazie and want to see her succeed. She gets a pretty big fan club going, which was a huge relief to me because I was getting frustrated with her trying to do it all alone! I wanted her to have someone to trust. Enter Labeck. She's so lucky she runs into someone who is a journalist for a news station, because what he's able to piece together is life saving - literally!Rosetti gives us a smattering of supporting characters to love as well as a few to hate. Mazie's mother-in-law, Vanessa, is definitely part of the latter group. She wants Mazie not just locked up but dead, and not a quick death but a tortured one. Obviously that's what the killer of her could-do-no-wrong son deserved. She is a piece of work!The whole book is set in Wisconsin, and being a Midwesterner myself, I loved some of the references that were casually tossed in, like squeaky cheese! Have I mentioned that the writing is hilarious? Because it is! Here is one of my favorite laugh-out-loud moments:"There are phrases you never want to hear: We're auditing your tax return. You tested positive for a brain fungus. We don't carry pants in a size that large. But the worse one is: Now put your feet in the stirrups and scootch down."My main issues with THE ESCAPE DIARIES was that Vanessa's allegiances got a little confusing and it was all a little foggy. I would have also loved a little more story to be told following the aftermath of what eventually becomes known as Operation Payback.BOTTOM LINEThis could have been a very serious and scary book. Parts of it were really suspenseful, but the hilarity of the writing and the outrageousness of the series of events kept the plot fun and lighthearted. The romance is unexpected and very welcome by the time it comes into play. I would have loved more story development after the suspense ended, but this was still an all-around fun read.RATING: BNote: I received a review copy of this title courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley.