Raise the Dead

I was glad she wrote a book telling us why Chris died.

Cat Austin has had a series of calls from an anonymous caller saying that they knew why her policeman husband, Chris, had died three years earlier. When a reporter friend of Cat's tries to set up a meeting between Cat and the caller, she is murdered and the caller disappears. Cat has always assumed that her husband was killed randomly by an armed man, who turned the gun on himself, there should be no why he died. She has got on with life, raising their two children, and is about to commit to Victor, also a policeman. Now the case is reopened, as it looks as though it may have been a murder because whatever case Chris was working on must have been closing in on the truth. Cat now has to relive her terrible loss, and work with the widow of her husband's murderer to find out the truth - for a while they must raise the dead to find the answers. This is Jane Rubino's sixth Cat Austin book - and I have to say I am hanging out for more. It has taken me a while, but I have read the whole series and can't say there is a bad one amongst them. Cat Austin is a living breathing person - one of the most `alive' characters I have come across in a long time. Her whole family is one that I would so love to be part off. And Cat's interactions with her children are so like those I had with mine, I found myself talking to the book giving her advice. The writing is easy to read, light and humorous - I often found myself laughing out loud. There are not so many characters that your eyes glaze over, and the ones there are, are all well rounded and grow through the series. While the books are a series, they can be read as stand alones as there is nothing really crucial that you need to know from previous books to assist in understanding the later books. Unlike previous books in the series, this book does have flashbacks to the characters and incidents that happened three years previously, taking us up to the funerals of the two men, but it does not distract from the plot as many flashbacks can - and actually helps clarify what some of the characters where thinking, why they did what they did. All I can say is roll on book seven, and do yourself a favour and seek this series out.

Ray Stites has six weeks to live if he fails to receive treatment; he has fourteen if he does, but he owes $50K and heath care is very expensive. He worries about how his beloved Kathleen will pay the bills he leaves behind when he receives a unique offer. If he kills three people, his debts will be paid and Kathleen will receive money to live off of. He agrees to kill a woman, a cop and himself. Three years later in the Delaware Valley, widow reporter Cat Austen raises her two children alone. Cat overhears her lover, Cape May County Homicide Investigator Victor Cardenas, tell an associate that he loves her, wants to marry her, but must tell her the truth Raise the Dead about her late husband Chris, a murdered cop. Stunned Cat begins making inquiries after confronting Victor who hides behind national security. She finds a tie to Kathleen Stites and the State of Art Fertility Clinic where she got pregnant, but the link to murdering Chris remains vague; Still someone wants her to back off from learning why her husband was killed. This is an exciting conclusion to a delightful Jersey murder miniseries that hooks readers with the three interrelated subplots tying together with no loose ends. The story line is action-paced as the audience learns along with Cat why Chris was murdered and whether her new love Victor was an instrument in her late husband's death. Cat makes the tale in her need to know the truth regardless of what she learns and how she may feel if the betrayal she suspects is real. Jane Rubino furbishes a powerful thriller that will send readers seeking more of her terrific mysteries. Harriet Klausner

This long-awaited book in Rubino's Cat Austen/Victor Cardenas series is a fast-paced mystery that takes a suprising turn, and leaves you breathless to the very last page. The hilarious dialogue, the complex relationships and the plot twist that puts a new and dramatic interpretation on the series, to this point are all the marks of a first rate mystery writer. Rubino never plays it safe and never serves up the same old formula, as many mystery writers seem to do - Raise the Dead is a unique and unforgettable read!

What can I say about Jane Rubino's latest? Hilarious. Thrilling. Heartbreaking. Suspenseful. Surprising. The book's flashback prologue puts a new twist on the murder of Cat Austen's husband, one that has dramatic and stunning repercussions. The plot also brushes up against the matter of embryonic life in a way that is not preachy, or clinical, or political because she puts her own characters into a situation where THEY are forced to think about the subject in a new light. I don't know of any other writer who is so willing to take risks with her characters or whose books I can't put down, then can't stop thinking about them once I've finished. And if you think Rubino couldn't pull off a better plot twist than Plot Twist's, are you in for a shock!