Brooklyn Graves - Review

Brooklyn Graves by Triss Stein


Rating: 3 Stars

Description:  Single mother and PhD candidate Erica Donato has her hands full between her job at a museum, her studies and her 15 year old daughter Chris.  When her friend and the father of Chris's best friend is found murdered she finds herself trying to provide comfort to Chris and the man's family while also trying to get some answers.  She doesn't have time to deal with arrogant Tiffany expert Dr. Flint of the project he drops on her lap.  However, she does find herself intrigued with the letters from an unknown "Tiffany Girl".  Soon the search for old secrets coincide with new tragedies and Erica finds herself caught in the middle.

Genre: Mystery

My Impression:  I really enjoyed this mystery.  I loved the look back into history through the letters especially as it was an era and industry that I don't know that much about.  Erica is ambitious, smart, kind and flawed all at once.  She tries to be a good mother and a good student but doesn't' always get it right.  I really loved that she didn't exhibit any beyond stupid investigative behavior and didn't seem to feel that she had the right to ask whoever she wanted want ever she wanted.  This is a pet peeve of mine with amateur detectives.  It drives me nuts when a character barges in and demands people answer questions when they have no reason to ask them.  It also drives me nuts when characters exhibit To Stupid To Live behavior.  I read a book once where the woman brought her 3 year old son to a confrontation with someone she knew was a murderer completely by herself telling no one where she was.  Anyway, that's another rant.  Erica didn't do any of this.  When it looked like her questions were pointing towards the Russian mob she stepped away and let the police handle it.  When she did let curiosity get the best of her she admitted that that had been stupid.  The only thing I didn't like about her was her relationship with her father.  I felt there was a little too much time caught up with what felt like teenage temper tantrums regarding him when he wasn't really doing anything particularly awful or controlling.  I thought Erica was better than that.  All and all this was a good book, the mystery was wrapped up satisfactorily and the link between past and present was done well.  This is the 2nd in a series but can be read on its own.  In fact, I didn't even know it was part of a series until I looked it up online.

Would I Read More of this Series/Author?:  Yes, in fact I'm going to go hunt up the first in the series.

Would I Recommend this Book?:  Yes