by Patricia Raybon (Raybon)
I love vacationing in Estes Park, CO, and when I stumbled across a mystery novel set there in the 1920s, I was eager to sample it. Then I discovered that Double the Lies (2023) was actually the second in the Annalee Spain series, and I prefer to start new series at the beginning. But that was perfect, because the libraries’ Just Desserts mystery fiction discussion group was scheduled to have our Series Share month in May 2023, in which all participants are encouraged to sample the first in any new mystery/thriller/suspense series, to report on to the group.
So…in the end, I decided to try the first Annalee Spain mystery, All That is Secret (2022), by Patricia Raybon. Annalee is a professor of divinity at a school in 1920s Chicago, one of the few places that would accept an African American woman as an instructor at that time. She had been raised in Denver, by a father who wasn’t always there for her when he was needed. Her father had been mending his ways and healing their relationship, when he unexpectedly died in an accident on the train tracks leading from Denver to Chicago. Or was it an accident — a mysterious letter from Reverend Black at her old Denver church, telling her she needs to come investigate what he believes to have been the murder of her father. Before leaving Chicago, Annalee befriends a plucky young white orphan boy (Eddie Brown Jr., who proceeds to sneak onto her train to Denver). Before they reach their destination, Annalee is attacked, her new 11-year-old friend has killed her attacker in self-defense, and that attacker turns out to be a Denver police officer.
Soon, Annalee and Eddie are on the run, before teaming up with the handsome young new Reverend who wrote her. The rest of the novel features Annalee infiltrating the household of a wealthy former politician, trying to find evidence of a conspiracy that might have been behind her father’s death. Throw in some KKK meetings, a corrupt religious leader, and a potential romance with the young Reverend and you’ve got a pleasant start to a new “Roaring 20s” Denver mystery series. Unfortunately, for me, this book series is published by Tyndale House, one of the largest publishers of Christian Fiction. Annalee is shown to be a divinity scholar that, herself, is filled with spiritual doubts, and there are repeated interruptions to the mystery plot as she questions her beliefs and how she got to where she is in her life. If All That is Secret had simply been a mystery novel, it would have held up well. But the injection of so many long passages of Annalee’s spiritual self-examination, which didn’t forward the plot in any way, bogged things down notably. Your mileage may vary!
(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try its sequel, Double the Lies by Patricia Raybon.)
( official Patricia Raybon web site )
See the list of titles recommended and discussed at the May 2023 Just Desserts “Series Share” meeting, here on BookGuide!
Recommended
by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service
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If you're a mystery fan, you're invited to join us for this month's Just Desserts meeting tonight, June 29th, at 6:30 p.m. in the 4th floor auditorium of the Bennett
Martin Public Library downtown at 14th & "N" St. -- this
mystery-themed discussion group meets on the last Thursday of each
month, January through October. Tonight, we'll be discussing the 2022 bestselling suspense novel Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney..
Even if you haven't read anything for this specific discussion, you can still participate, and learn about great new mysteries to try! For more information, check out the Just Desserts schedule at https://lincolnlibraries.org/bookguide/book-groups/#justdesserts
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