My Sister’s Grave – Robert Dugoni
My Sister’s Grave was one of those books that appeared on my Kindle one day and I’m not really sure how it got there. I know I must have downloaded it at some point, but when or, more importantly, why is beyond me. All of which begs the question, why did I start reading it in the first place? And, now that I’ve finished it, was it worth the time? The answer to that first question is pretty easy. I always like a buffer in between books in a series. Having just finished Sanderson’s Way of Kings, I felt like some fluff would help me reset. The second question, well…
My Sister’s Grave takes place in the Pacific Northwest outside of Seattle in a little made up town I’ve already forgotten the name of where everyone knows everyone else and your business is everyone else’s. It center’s around Tracy Crosswhite, the older sister to Sarah, and the two are attached at the hip. Just like any good murder mystery thriller, Sarah goes missing and Tracy becomes obsessed with trying to piece together what happened and why the clues don’t add up.
It starts out with a couple of hunters discovering the decomposing remains of some human. Turns out, you guessed it, it’s Sarah. 20 years ago, when the case went to trial, the body was never found and it would seem that the “killer” was convicted without it. Tracy comes back to scope it out and see what else she can find, further piecing together the mystery surrounding her sister’s disappearance.
Alright, you got me there. Action, intrigue, why does it seem like the sheriff is covering something up? Why didn’t the defense attorney push the witnesses in their testimony? I’m all in. The problem is that the first third of the book takes forever. I felt like I was slogging through chapters of back story and sisterhood flashbacks just to get the point across that they were close. Granted, I tend to stay away from the mushy stuff. Maybe somebody else would find these chapters entertaining, but for me it was a drag.
It really starts to pick up when they have the funeral and Tracy is reintroduced to (of course) the weird pudgy kid from high school that went off, deleted his Facebook, hit the gym, and lawyered up. I mean really, he became a lawyer. He only moved back because his “country club” wife cheated on him, of course. They quickly hit it off in a series of oddly timed sexual advances, and Tracy soon convinces him that things aren’t what they seem. He agrees to try the case.
This was the most enjoyable part of the book in my opinion. The testimony from the witnesses not adding up, to the cross-examination, to the well written tension, it was all great. Dugoni does a great job here putting the reader in the scene with Tracy and all her emotions while not detracting from the large amount of dialogue. He did a great job making it obvious to the reader who was talking, and the feeling within the room. I was hooked. In fact, it was at this point that I assumed the rest of the book would take place in the courtroom, centered around the appeal. I really wanted that to be the case. I was wrong.
The second that the judge rules that the original trial was a miss, here comes the biggest storm the northwest has ever seen, here comes the fire at the old attorney’s house, there goes Tracy driving her Subaru down a dangerous road.. The story quickly devolved into a.. I don’t even know what to call it. Murder thriller? The tone completely changed, in my opinion and the pace picked up exponentially.
This next part contains spoilers.
As we follow Tracy, her boyfriend, and the sheriff in their race against time, we discover that in reality, there was no mystery at all. The sheriff just sucked at his job. And now, the killer is free and OMG he has Tracy and stuffed her in the same place that he had Sarah before burying the body! Wtf. We’ve had very little character development on the guy that was in jail besides, “then he looked at her creepily. Tracy felt weird about the way he was looking at her,” and now he quickly becomes the center of the rest of the book. We get hit with more flashbacks that now explain what happened all those years ago, even though we already know (thanks sheriff), and we’re introduced to a whole new setting that is pivotal to the remainder of Tracy’s life. Will she escape?? I’m guessing yes considering this is book 1 in the Tracy Crosswhite Series (TM).
Honestly, it lost me. If it wasn’t for that bit in the middle, I really wouldn’t have enjoyed this book at all. All the characters were written in a similar tone, even the killer didn’t have any quirks to separate him from the others. At the end of the book, it just kinda fell flat. Even after all the running around and super fast pace, it didn’t grab hold of me and swallow me up into pages. I probably won’t be reading the others.
★★★☆☆
