Thursday, December 15, 2011

Book Review: The Fifth Woman by G. William Parker

Summary: Naked and dead, the body of a high roller was found in a Vegas hotel suite. He was insured for twenty million dollars.

Ten years later during an ordinary audit, Rick Morgan, Chief Audit Executive for the insurance company learns of the extra ordinary death benefit. At first he’s curious, but with facts being cold, vague or missing, his gut tells him there is more. Digging into the past with the help of Vince, a former homicide detective, a bizarre puzzle emerges. Which piece is the mysterious disappearance of the former United States Congressman, the fatal car wreck that left three little girls orphaned or the FBI who wants the investigation dropped?

Gathering the pieces, someone is always a step a head. But who? The elegant, conservative Human Resources VP? The playful, sexually starved Branch Manager? The gorgeous woman with a secret past? The stunning but shrewd corporate attorney? Or the mystery woman in San Francisco?

“Not everything is as it appears to be”—a motto Rick must remember when putting the pieces together … all twenty million.


Review: I normally don't read mysteries, so I tried to go into this book with an open mind. Comparing it the mystery movies or shows I've watched, this book really wasn't that bad. There were parts that I wasn't a big fan of, but over all it was a pretty enjoyable book that gave enough new information to keep you interested for the entire book. 

Rick was an okay protagonist, but the way he was so smooth with the ladies kind of bugged me. It was like every single girl he ran into was gorgeous, 5'5'', and 120 pounds. So not only was he meeting these insanely pretty women, they all practically fell in love with him after only knowing him for a few hours. I liked how adamant he was about solving the case and wouldn't scare easily, I just wish it was less focus on his many, many romances and more focused on his case. 

The case Rick was trying to solve was pretty interesting, involving a case of a 2 million life insurance policy. I also liked how a big part of the case was whether the deaths were real or murder and everything seemed to be connected to 10 years ago. So many people were involved in this case that it was kind of hard to keep track of, but it all made sense in the end. I didn't like, though, how Rick would say something was "off" with like 5 different people because then it was obvious and predictable that they had something to do with the mystery. I would have liked it better if it were a surprise and he didn't have such in-depth intuition about everyone. Overall this was a decent mystery novel, there were just a couple of things that could have changed to make this book a really intriguing mystery.



No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...