Review: The best way to read a book series...
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 11 21, 2012
...is to start at the very beginning, and this three-book set is a great find for mystery readers. In the past (before Kindle) the only books I had read were those that had made it to print publication, with most of the wrinkles already ironed out. Sometimes an author's early work was published after his reputation was established, and these books were nearly always disappointing as my expectations were already high. One thing I am really enjoying about my Kindle is the chance to read a number of mystery series starting with book 1. It's quite educational to see a number of years of growth compressed into three or six or even ten books read from beginning to the end of the series. The Serena Wilcox mysteries are no exception. From a fairly credible first effort, the reader watches Ms. Thomas' writing skills improve almost page by page. She has a definite eye for riveting plot material and each of these three plot lines is distinct and yet seems perfectly feasible in the detective-agency setting.A bonus with this author's work there are so few of the editing problems that plague so many of the Kindle books. I think there may have been a couple of typos, but they were so few that I didn't even try to write them down. There was one error that had to do with the story line in 'Camp Conviction:' Serena had asked the police department to send a couple of detectives to the house she was visiting at 11:30pm, but at Location 7993 in the text she is thinking that it must be 9:30 and the police should have already arrived. On the next page we are back to 11:30pm, as previously stated.I already have 'Angel's Mark' loaded and ready to go, and I'm really excited to see what difference the intervening years have made in both the author and her protagonist. Oh...I also wanted to mention how much I enjoy the author's notes, as well as her daughter's, with each book in the set. Her back-story adds immensely to the reader's understanding of and interest in the writer's thought processes. It's great to have such insight into the author's personality and life experiences and how they have contributed to her storytelling.