Review: Take Harris, Patterson, King, Brown, Parker, Crichton, Clancy, mix them all together and you get a story, just not McCray's...
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 10 29, 2013
I really want to like Carolyn McCray.  Her dialogue is quite good and even the more paranormal crime thrillers are pretty well designed -- even if you already know who the bad guy is on page 3, you still have to wait for a bunch of twists and turns that can be quite fun.  But here's the rub:  Just once, I'd like to read a Carolyn McCray book that was developed by Carolyn McCray.  The more you get into her plots and her characters you start seeing Hannibal Lecter, Alex Cross, Robert Langdon, Jesse Stone, Lisbeth Salander, or some other author's characters that are conveniently borrowed and then seemingly modified just enough to avoid copyright infringement...  Even some of the late Tom Clancy's characters appear in the Betrayed Series. And sometimes it's just too much Indiana Jones on steroids... Also, I find McCray's decision to wholesale destroy sites of historical importance -- just about every major religious icon she can blow up gets the heave, including the bones of Mary and most of the Disciples -- just glitzy, shock value stuff.  That appears to be her one unique and arguably tasteless contribution to the action and suspense genre.  Again, I think Carolyn McCray is a clever writer -- I just wish she'd be clever enough to come up with her own material and find a way not to destroy the Sphinx, Saint Basil's Cathedral, Solomon's Temple, Sodom and Gomorrah...