Deceptions: A Connor Hawthorne Mystery
Lauren Maddison's ambitious debut novel will more than satisfy fans of the emergent lesbian mystery genre. She offers an intricate and absorbing plot, and the excitement of a new heroine, Connor Hawthorne, a successful mystery novelist and former district attorney who owes something to Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta--and possibly to the glamorous Cornwell herself. The lesser characters inDeceptiontend to be overwritten (her Jews offer food and wisdom, her rich people can't take a step without crushing an oriental rug underfoot), but the story is rich and suspenseful enough to distract the reader from these minor flaws. In fact, the conventional elements of the plot--a secret, a break-in, a bomb blast, a friendship, a romance, a car chase through the Arizona desert--carry us further than the ancient magic that helps Connor flee from her pursuers and, with the help of others, solve the murder of her ex-lover Arianna.--Regina Marler