Mysterious Reviews, mysteries reviewed by the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books, is publishing a new review of Case Study by C. R. Cardin. For our blog readers, we are printing it first here in advance of its publication on our website.
Case Study by C. R. Cardin
A Taylor Case Mystery
Evolution Press (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 0-9797412-6-2 (0979741262)
ISBN-13: 978-0-9797412-6-5 (9780979741265)
Publication Date: May 2008
List Price: $23.95
Synopsis (from the publisher): The childhood abduction of her brother has left Dr. Taylor Case desperate for her father’s redemption and denying her own desire to find love. While teaching forensic science at Georgetown University, she secretly hunts down child predators ensuring justice is served -- one way or another. As Taylor prepares to wrap-up fall semester, she finds herself in the middle of yet another treacherous child abduction, and this one is close to home.
During a birthday celebration for her niece, Taylor learns of the suspected abduction of her nephew’s playmate, Kevin. She grows impatient with the FBI’s efforts to track down the missing boy in spite of the evidence she collects and shares with the dashing Agent Anderson.
Driven by obsessive desire and unwilling to let history repeat itself, she initiates her own plan, knowing she must find Kevin soon if she is to find him at all. Taylor’s efforts toward saving the missing boy draw her further and further into a chilling international web of child brokering, and this time she may have gone too far.
In her dangerous attempt to rescue Kevin, Taylor finds herself the hunted, captured by a vengeful killer who intends to silence her permanently. Will it be too late for Kevin?
Review: C. R. Cardin introduces forensic science professor Dr. Taylor Case who becomes involved in an investigation of a kidnapped boy in Case Study.
Teaching students is Taylor's day job but she leads a secret double life bringing child pornographers to justice. Despite lacking any official capacity, she is instrumental in ensuring that the criminals are arrested, even to the point of planting evidence for the authorities to find. She believes that her own brother was kidnapped years ago for the purposes of being forced into pornography and is obsessed with finding him, or at least knowing what happened to him. When a young boy living on the same street as her sister goes missing, she's convinced he's been kidnapped and undertakes a secret investigation separate from the FBI to locate him and return him to his home.
Though Case Study is a routinely plotted mystery, it is unusual both in how it is written and a specific tangential subplot that is introduced along the way. The narrative is roughly evenly divided between the perspective of Taylor and that of the FBI. When Taylor is in the picture, the prose is terse, almost brusque, as if she is emotionless or at best humorless. This may be partly intentional to illustrate how she developed as an adult, from her relationship with her father to the loss of her brother. It's unnerving at times to read. About midway through, the FBI takes over and the writing style reverts to that more commonly found in a police procedural. The subplot involves a visiting scientist to whom Taylor finds herself sexually attracted. She fears the scientist may in some way be associated with child pornography, yet she allows her physical desire to overtake her intellectual and emotional revulsion. It's a bit of a rollercoaster ride for both Taylor and the reader yet at the same time seems oddly incompatible with the mystery.
In large part Case Study reads as if sections of two or three different and incomplete outlines for books were melded here, the result being a not quite cohesive story that works at some level but appears unfinished nonetheless.
Special thanks to Evolution Press for providing a copy of Case Study for this review.
Review Copyright © 2008 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved.
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