Call Her Sabine Reviews
Rating 4.5 Stars
 
 
Eileen Ganfors reviewed Call Her Sabine (The Richard Carter Novels Book 6)
Local Color Scare March 12, 2014
AR Simmons has set the Richard Carter novels in the Ozarks (where I moved to retire just a month ago). So I was thrilled with the local color and mention of places I know. I was also relieved that the book, while taut with suspense, is not as completely weird and creeped out as Daniel Woodrell's WINTER'S BONE.

CALL HER SABINE opens with the finding of a dead body in a country club swimming pool. Just a little moonlight mischief gone wrong or something much worse?

It doesn't take long for Simmons to throw in clues that this is murder, plain and simple, and Carter is going to have to solve it to bring any kind of end to the tension of the townsfolk.

Simmons writes with a good ear for dialog and an eye on the details that make one place different from another. A fine mystery from an author new to me. Thumb is up!
 
 
 
J Simmons reviewed Call Her Sabine (The Richard Carter Novels Book 6)
AMAZING & CHILLING March 7, 2014
SCARY HOW FAST 1 CHOICE CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE SO DRASTICALLY!!! EACH BOOK IN THE RICHARD CARTER SERIES IS BETTER THAN LAST!!! LOVE ALL THE BOOKS BY MY FAVORITE AUTHOR AR SIMMONS!
 
 

A mystery of differing impressions

By Fiona Gregory, editor      

(4 1/2 Stars)

Excerpted from Editorial Review

Full Review at 

Web Fiction Guide

 

I can honestly say I read this online novel non-stop for hours and I was not forcing myself to do so. So the story did succeed in grabbing and fascinating me, and the interesting question is why?

This is the story of a detective's efforts to find a missing college student. It wasn't so hard to guess who the kidnapper probably was, although some red herrings were thrown out. The mystery I kept reading to find out, was how the detective would figure it out. There really were no clues whatsoever. That he even kept on the case, is a manifestation of Calvin Coolidge's quote "Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence".

I enjoyed the descriptions of the various eccentric characters Carter interviews in the course of his investigation. I went along with the flow of a deputy's life in small town Missouri. Many of the incidents that are related do not in fact turn out to be relevant to the case that is at the centre of the plot, although you do not know this at the time. The story is sprawling, yes. In part this makes it more realistic, as you don't know what is a Chekhov's gun and what is just a slice of life or a unrelated mini-mystery off to the side. On the other hand, some of the details will be of more interest to readers who have read one or more of Simmon's other novels about Richard Carter and his family. Even though I have, I'd forgotten details, and, for example, references to Shane and the canoe rental business came out of the blue for me. But the gist of it is that Deputy Richard Carter has a lot of past that he's still dealing with.

The sections from the point of view of Charlie, the kidnapped college student, are eerie and put me in mind of recent news events such as Ariel Castro's crimes. Imprisoned without direct knowledge of her kidnapper and his intentions for her, she alternates between terror and determination. Since this is a mystery, I don't want to give away spoilers, so I will try to be very oblique in what I say next, but if you are worried stop reading now . . .  . . .  . . . . . Still with me? There is a way she could have turned out to be more of an agent in solving her own mystery, and partly I wish it had turned out that way, but the randomness of the manner in which the turning point is reached may actually reflect reality more . . . . in any case like Amanda Berry she turns out to be far from a passive victim.

Does "Call Her Sabine" add anything new to the detective-mystery-suspense genre? Not especially, except perhaps in the setting and characters. Long story short, I liked it, [short passage omitted] you will have to decide for yourselves.

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