Pity the Devil’s Wife
Author: W. Hanelan
2.5 out of 5 stars
Dr. Clare Cordingley is a psychiatrist and one of the founders of the Twins Ranch Institute, where she works with mentally challenged twins. Rainy Claiborne, one of the residents, finds the body of a murder victim and ends up confessing to the crime. Clare is positive that he is innocent and in unsure about Detective Hammond’s willingness to investigate, so she decides to do her own investigation. Clare also discovers that biological samples from the residents are missing and that there has been an uptick in twins going missing. Will Clare be able to prove Rainy’s innocence and find out who is behind these crimes?
The plot was intriguing with may twists and turns. I thought one thing was going on the somethings would be revealed and send things in a different direction. However, there’s almost too twists and things become harder to keep track of. There were also a few plotlines that were quickly dropped until the end of the book. I also had a problem with the timeline of the murder investigation, mostly with how log it took for some things to happen. The worst example of this is that it takes over a month for Hammond to talk to the ranch’s chief of security and get that day’s security log’s from him. You would think that would have been doe within the first few days. I also didn’t care for the open-ended way some things were left in the end.
Overall, the writing was fine. There were some good detailed descriptions. However, it got too descriptive when Clare was driving. Every road she was on would be given and how many miles she drove. It was just too much and was unnecessary. There were also punctuation and capitalization errors along with some odd word choices.
There are a lot of characters, who are all interesting, but the main characters are Clare ad Hammond. Hammond is a good detective and is determined to find the truth. He lost his wife years before, which still affects him. He’s also very active, playing sports and working on cars. Clare is very driven and determined and very devoted to her patients. However, I didn’t like some fo clare’s actions and the lack of clear explanation for them. For example, Clare finds a dark ritual that has been set up in her bedroom before she even knows that Rainy has been arrested, and she decides to not tell anyone about it and looks ito it herself. Maybe she didn’t think anyone would tke it seriously, but someone still broke into her house. Then later, while she’s deep into the investigation, she decides it’s a good time to buy a beach house. It’s very impulsive and just weird timing all around.
Another big thing I didn’t like was how much unnecessary background information was given about some of the characters. For example, we are given family history of Clare’s lawyer, Lewis. We are told about his great-great-grandfather who managed to escape a slave boat and was taken in by a plantation owner and his wife who raise him as their son and how well he does throughout his life. The plantation passes to him and eventually Lewis is the one to donate the plantation to a historical society. And like I said, Lewis is not the only character where we are told about their family with so much detail.
This was an okay written book with an interesting plot and characters. But I was just left feeling unsatisfied. With the problems I mentioned, I’m rating this book 2.5 out of 5 stars. If you like long books with a lot of minutiae and complex mysteries then you might like it.
Current price through Amazon Kindle: $2.99
Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B077K47JLZ
(I do not benefit from the use of this link.)