Do you like mystery, excitement, and intrigue? I do. When I first found Julie Cave’s mystery trilogy I was pretty excited at the prospect of reading some good fiction, bogged down with textbook assignments and informative magazines and books as I am. Like many other adventure readers out there, I tend toward the sin of reading gluttony, reading an entire book in a day or two just to realize that I’m out of good reading material again. When I bought this mystery trilogy (on sale), I determined to make myself enjoy each book and take my time reading and I’m proud to say that I took over six months to read the entire trilogy.
The first book in this trilogy is Deadly Disclosures. In this book, I was introduced to the main character, Dinah Harris, who is an FBI agent trying to figure out the scandalous mystery behind the disappearance of the secretary of the Smithsonian. In spite of her strong and intelligent character, Dinah struggles with guilt, loss, and an addiction to alcohol in her personal life, which soon causes trouble in her work as an FBI agent. Dinah also makes a dangerous archenemy that follows her through the remainder of the trilogy. The book is not merely a story, rather, it also gives the reader personal experience in the importance of the Biblical age of the earth.
The second book I read is The Shadowed Mind. Dinah tries to track down a serial killer who is motivated by the eugenics movement which is strongly rooted in his evolutionary worldview. Meanwhile, the heart filled story of a family struggling with the ideas behind eugenics plays out and eventually weaves its way into Dinah’s case. In their personal lives, the characters struggle with forgiveness, healing, and moving on.
The final book of the trilogy, Pieces of Light, was probably my favorite of the three. In this book, Dinah is called upon to track down a bomber who is targeting churches, constantly asking “why?” throughout the mystery. A family struggling with the aftermath of domestic violence and the issue of hypocrisy in the church also end up working their way into the mystery. In the end, Dinah puts herself in a high risk situation as she confronts the bomber and offers hope. One minor thing that slightly offended me in the previous books was that the author remarkably described most of the bad guys as possessing blue eyes (yes, I’m a little bit biased because I also possess this trait), but Pieces of Light gave me a good guy with blue eyes, so I will not let the previous descriptions offend me.
Over all, I thought it was an excellent series, but it is more descriptive of violence and other crime scenes than I am usually comfortable with. Julie Cave writes beautifully, helping the reader feel as if he or she were actually there and her character depictions are very detailed and easy to invision. However, it is this same descriptive and beautiful writing ability that makes some of the scenes a little too real – real and very much like our world today. I do not recommend these books for family read-aloud or even pre-teens, though they do send vital messages.
