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Down The Rabbit Hole: A Samantha Skellar Mystery
FBI Agent Samantha Skellar and her partner Robert Munroe are on the trail of a possible serial killer who has been terrorizing the suburban neighborhoods of Seattle. When Agent Skellar starts receiving threatening messages on her computer, she calls in the help of free-spirited hacker Lucy Spoon.
216 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2005
10 people want to read
About the author
Lynne Jamneck
22 books22 followersLynne Jamneck is a fiction writer and editor with an MA in English Literature from Auckland University. Her work has earned nominations for the Sir Julius Vogel and Lambda awards.
Her short fiction has been published in a variety of venues including Jabberwocky, H.P. Lovecraft’s Magazine of Horror, and the anthologies So Fey: Queer Fairy Fiction and Black Wings of Cthulhu V. She has also edited several anthologies, including *Periphery* (2008), *Dreams from the Witch House: Female Voices of Lovecraftian Horror* (2015), and, co-edited with S.T. Joshi, Gothic Lovecraft (2016).
Her short fiction has been published in a variety of venues including Jabberwocky, H.P. Lovecraft’s Magazine of Horror, and the anthologies So Fey: Queer Fairy Fiction and Black Wings of Cthulhu V. She has also edited several anthologies, including *Periphery* (2008), *Dreams from the Witch House: Female Voices of Lovecraftian Horror* (2015), and, co-edited with S.T. Joshi, Gothic Lovecraft (2016).
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June 18, 2020Because the author is a South African transplanted to New Zealand, it is difficult to understand why she chose to set the book in the U.S. and have her protagonist be an FBI agent. It would have been so much more interesting if she had used either of her own countries and their agencies as her models. Oh, well. There is so much FBI stuff on TV that Sam Skellar seems authentic, at least to this reader—with maybe the exception of her protagonist eating tomatoes for breakfast. But still, television fodder is not what we strive for. Here’s the gist:
When a man is shot dead in his own bed and his wife raped with a metal object, Sam Skellar and her partner are called in to investigate, much to the disapproval of the local police. Seems that the crime mirrors a similar one, making it a possible serial killing and thus under the jurisdiction of the FBI. But when a third crime happens, Sam realizes that something about the crimes is not quite right. Meanwhile, someone is stalking her and making obscene phone calls and emails, so she hires computer hacker Lucy Spoon to track him or her down.
This is a Bella book, and for those of you who don’t know this, Bella subsumed Naiad in the early 2000s. Naiad editor Christine Cassidy—who now goes by Christi Cassidy--once again seems to get the tail end of the over-the-transom submissions and can do little with it. Either that or she is an editor in name only, because this book needs the hand of someone who understands the author and the book like it is her own. Otherwise, omissions are compounded and chances are missed and what might before editing have been a 2.5-rated novel comes out as a 2.4-rated novel. Bummer.
Sam Skellar is not a bad character. Jamneck writes in the ubiquitous 1st person point of view and does it neither well nor badly. I didn't dislike Sam, nor did I like her much. The only really interesting character was her love interest, Lucy, whose backstory was, thanks to author and editor, missing. Either might have consulted 20-something writer Tonya Muir about the value of backstory, but it’s too late for that now. Kudos for augmenting the main plot with an intriguing subplot, but demerits for solving both simplistically.
Well, what about the writing style? It was neither noticeably bad nor engagingly good. The crime was fairly interesting until the solution, which was more forced than most. I did enjoy the brief descriptions of forensics that the author gives us; it reminded me of Devil’s Leg Crossing, by Kaye Davis—another Cassidy-edited novel, and another that I gave less than an average rating to. But that brief bit of enjoyment was far too little. And if anyone can tell me the relationship of the title to the novel, please do.
I would not recommend this book to anyone, but if you have already purchased it, donate it to your local library. While you are there, maybe you can find something a little better to read.
Note: I read what appears to be the first printing of the Bella Books edition of this novel.
Another Note: This review is included in my book The Art of the Lesbian Mystery Novel, along with information on over 930 other lesbian mysteries by over 310 authors.
When a man is shot dead in his own bed and his wife raped with a metal object, Sam Skellar and her partner are called in to investigate, much to the disapproval of the local police. Seems that the crime mirrors a similar one, making it a possible serial killing and thus under the jurisdiction of the FBI. But when a third crime happens, Sam realizes that something about the crimes is not quite right. Meanwhile, someone is stalking her and making obscene phone calls and emails, so she hires computer hacker Lucy Spoon to track him or her down.
This is a Bella book, and for those of you who don’t know this, Bella subsumed Naiad in the early 2000s. Naiad editor Christine Cassidy—who now goes by Christi Cassidy--once again seems to get the tail end of the over-the-transom submissions and can do little with it. Either that or she is an editor in name only, because this book needs the hand of someone who understands the author and the book like it is her own. Otherwise, omissions are compounded and chances are missed and what might before editing have been a 2.5-rated novel comes out as a 2.4-rated novel. Bummer.
Sam Skellar is not a bad character. Jamneck writes in the ubiquitous 1st person point of view and does it neither well nor badly. I didn't dislike Sam, nor did I like her much. The only really interesting character was her love interest, Lucy, whose backstory was, thanks to author and editor, missing. Either might have consulted 20-something writer Tonya Muir about the value of backstory, but it’s too late for that now. Kudos for augmenting the main plot with an intriguing subplot, but demerits for solving both simplistically.
Well, what about the writing style? It was neither noticeably bad nor engagingly good. The crime was fairly interesting until the solution, which was more forced than most. I did enjoy the brief descriptions of forensics that the author gives us; it reminded me of Devil’s Leg Crossing, by Kaye Davis—another Cassidy-edited novel, and another that I gave less than an average rating to. But that brief bit of enjoyment was far too little. And if anyone can tell me the relationship of the title to the novel, please do.
I would not recommend this book to anyone, but if you have already purchased it, donate it to your local library. While you are there, maybe you can find something a little better to read.
Note: I read what appears to be the first printing of the Bella Books edition of this novel.
Another Note: This review is included in my book The Art of the Lesbian Mystery Novel, along with information on over 930 other lesbian mysteries by over 310 authors.
Displaying 1 of 1 review