A Matter of Staying On Schedule

I wish I were able to begin today saying that I have finished A Matter of Trust by Lis Wiehl but I haven't. I'm actually exactly at the 50% mark so what have we learned so far? Mia Quinn is back in the saddle after having lost her husband in a bad car crash. Not only is she dealing with being a newly single mother, one of her good friends Collen, also a prosecutor, has been killed while they were on the phone together. Talk about things happening all at once and turning life on its head.

Mia slowly starts to unravel layers of her husband's life that she wasn't privy to before his death and as if that isn't enough, her relationship with her son is on the fritz. He's the typical fourteen year old who just wants to fit in with the guys on his football team. He's actually pretty annoying and I find that most authors write teenagers to be the most formulaic people ever. I am always thankful when the teen isn't a brat or actually cares about things in the world besides having friends or disagreeing with their parents. I remember high school being the biggest thing in the world while I was there and it usually is in every teens life, but I find it hard to believe that these cliches are still needed in every novel. Especially when that character could be so much more after having lost a parent and should really be going through a healing process instead of worrying so much about what others think of them. These teens are sadly introduced to the reality that popularity and acceptance are not everything when death can tragically come knocking.

Wiehl has also provided us with Charlie, a handsome officer that loathes Mia yet finds her to be fascinating. I assume he will be the love interest in this novel since there is supposed to be so many things that annoy him about her and vise versa. Conviently, Charlie and Mia and forced together by investing her friend's murder and how it may or may not be linked to similar murder of a prosecuter from the same office. The idea that maybe it's hunting season on prosecutor's is what it seems but I don't have enough information yet to know if that's the case. Charlie is also helping Mia to investigate the case that Colleen was working on before her death. That is actually a pretty interesting case involving a high school student who was taunted so much he decides to commit suicide.

Overall this novel is a quick read for those who love mystery crime novels. It's obvious that Wiehl knows what she's doing. There are various nuggets of information and techniques used when interrogating witnesses and police procedurals.  From what I gather this is the debut of Mia Quinn's series so I doubt she will die at the end of the novel but I am interested in finding out where all these plot twists are leading. Although there are many aspects of this novel that I see as being obvious to savy readers like me (hee-hee) it doesn't stop me from reading on. I hope the second half of this novel is as captivating as the first.