{"id":671,"date":"2012-08-29T22:13:01","date_gmt":"2012-08-30T04:13:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=671"},"modified":"2012-08-29T22:14:34","modified_gmt":"2012-08-30T04:14:34","slug":"julie-kramer-shunning-sarah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/julie-kramer-shunning-sarah\/","title":{"rendered":"Julie Kramer: Shunning Sarah"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/form>\n

Julia Kramer\u2019s skill set is extremely varied:\u00a0 she\u2019s funny, she writes suspenseful books, she tells you a bit about the way TV news works, and her books are an enjoyable breeze to read.\u00a0 Why that is is a mystery, as she tends to actually cover some very dark territory in her novels, and they\u2019ve gotten a tad darker lately.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>She\u2019s also, since her first novel, sharpened her skills as a straight up mystery writer.\u00a0 She\u2019s gotten terrific at twists and clues, and at setting up a story that gives the reader a fair chance at figuring things out.\u00a0 In this novel, set partially in Minnesota\u2019s Amish community, she takes two disparate worlds, the \u201cEnglish\u201d and the Amish, and sort of pits them reluctantly against each other. The book opens with a terrific scene of a farm boy falling into a sinkhole and finding he\u2019s there with a dead body.\u00a0 While the farm boy isn\u2019t the point, the dead body is the point, this wonderful scene setter grabs your attention and gets you completely invested in the story Kramer wants to tell.<\/p>\n

Riley Spartz, Kramer\u2019s main character, is an on air reporter in Minneapolis-St. Paul, and she\u2019s trying to roll with the punches that are changing every aspect of journalism.\u00a0 Her newest cross to bear is a news director who is concerned almost exclusively with cost and demographics.\u00a0 When Riley pitches the sinkhole story to him (it\u2019s actually in her parents’ home town) he\u2019s reluctant but she points out they\u2019ll have an exclusive \u2013 potentially like Baby Jessica \u2013 if they cover it.\u00a0 When he looks blank at the \u201cBaby Jessica\u201d reference she knows she\u2019s in trouble, but he gives his reluctant OK and she\u2019s off.<\/p>\n

When the rescued boy\u2019s mom and the sheriff both seem strangely reluctant to talk about the happy outcome, Riley senses there\u2019s something up and she finds out about the body the boy spent the night with by having her camera man film the workers at the sinkhole.<\/p>\n

The title gives away the identity of the victim, though she\u2019s tricky to identify, as she\u2019s missing her face.\u00a0 When it becomes clear that she\u2019s Amish, Riley senses there\u2019s lots more to the story and begs her boss to be able to cover it, but he\u2019s against at as it\u2019s outside of their demographic,\u00a0 When a side bar story emerges concerning hunters killing black bears who have been tagged for research, her producer is willing to put her on that story (it\u2019s about an animal, after all) and let her follow up the \u201cSarah\u201d story as a sideline. Kramer always has a side bar story about animals \u2013 this one involving the black bear is excellent and gives you some new insight into hunting, hibernation, and just how fast it might take a hibernating bear to wake up.\u00a0 And she ties the two threads together very skillfully by the end of the book.<\/p>\n

The Sarah story is a heartbreaker.\u00a0 Why is she being shunned by her community?\u00a0 Her grieving little sister isn\u2019t allowed to talk about her, and when Riley circulates a picture of her the family is furious as they don\u2019t believe in images of themselves.\u00a0 Riley has a hard time getting a foothold into the story until the sinkhole boy\u2019s mother calls her for help.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to give away too much of the clever story here, other than to say that as usual with a Julie Kramer novel I had a hard time putting it down.\u00a0 I liked the Amish storyline and the fact the much of the book took place in Riley\u2019s home town.\u00a0 I thought the ending was fantastic, one of her best yet.\u00a0 And I can\u2019t wait to find out what happens in Riley\u2019s newsroom next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Julia Kramer\u2019s skill set is extremely varied:\u00a0 she\u2019s funny, she writes suspenseful books, she tells you a bit about the way TV news works, and her books are an enjoyable breeze to read.\u00a0 Why that is is a mystery, as she tends to actually cover some very dark territory in her novels, and they\u2019ve gotten … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-americancozy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":676,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671\/revisions\/676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}