{"id":7090,"date":"2026-06-19T09:12:41","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T16:12:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=7090"},"modified":"2026-06-19T09:12:41","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T16:12:41","slug":"kemper-donovan-sweet-spot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/kemper-donovan-sweet-spot\/","title":{"rendered":"Kemper Donovan: Sweet Spot"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ghostwriter #3<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This is the third book in a series that is strikingly original in many ways.\u00a0 In the first book, Donovan\u2019s heroine was not even named.\u00a0 She was just functioning as a ghostwriter (and amateur sleuth) for a Hilary Clinton-esque politician, who had recently lost an election. In the second, after writing about the crime she and the Hilary character solved, she\u2019s a mini celebrity, and she\u2019s asked on a cruise as a writing instructor.\u00a0 By book two, she has a pen name \u2013 Belle Currer \u2013 though it\u2019s made very clear it\u2019s not her real name. In book three, Donovan has chosen to model his story on the heartbreaking 2002 abduction of Elizabeth Smart in Utah.<\/p>\n

This novel is also set in Utah, and the Elizabeth Smart character, Genevieve, has asked Belle to help her write a memoir of the ordeal.\u00a0 While Genevieve has written many other books in the self-help genre, this will be the first straight up memoir of the experience.\u00a0 She lives in a walled compound with her husband, son, father and his boyfriend, as well as a Mrs. Danvers like housekeeper.\u00a0 Genevieve\u2019s mother has just died and Belle is set to arrive for the scattering of her ashes.<\/p>\n

She is picked up at the airport by Genevieve\u2019s best friend, Abi, who is now dating the man Belle was briefly involved with in the first book.\u00a0 There are a roil of emotions going on, and when the news arrives that one of Genevieve\u2019s kidnappers, who has just been released from prison, has turned up at the front door, everything goes even more sideways.\u00a0 The kidnapper is sent away but the woman is later discovered dead of an apparent fentanyl overdose within the compound the next morning.<\/p>\n

The police, who treat Genevieve and her family with kid gloves, are willing to see it as an overdose, but Belle is not so sure, and she soon partners up with one of the detectives on the case, a stalwart Mormon who is also an excellent investigator.\u00a0 She\u2019s willing to work with Belle because of her writing, in addition to the fact that she\u2019s actually solved two murders. The two women make a cute pair, with the sophisticated New Yorker Belle sometimes underestimating Kay\u2019s smarts.\u00a0 Kay\u2019s homespun manner disguises a keen intelligence.<\/p>\n

The investigation takes the two to the prison where one of the kidnappers is still incarcerated. They aren\u2019t allowed to see him, but they interview the social worker at the prison who worked with the woman, who said she felt she was totally rehabilitated and very unlikely to have killed herself.\u00a0 The mystery part of this novel is extremely clever, and the only caveat I had with it was how easily Belle hops into bed with a prison guard she\u2019s using for book background.<\/p>\n

She and Genevieve bond over their childhoods and the heaviness of assuming blame \u2013 Belle has her own family tragedy and resulting estrangements \u2013 and the end of the book leaves a very tantalizing thread for the next novel.\u00a0 These novels are cozies with an edge: Donovan does not sheathe his claws, and it\u2019s most often to the benefit of the story, making it fresh and interesting. \u00a0I\u2019m looking forward to knowing even more about Belle in the next book.\u00a0 —\u00a0Robin Agnew<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ghostwriter #3 This is the third book in a series that is strikingly original in many ways.\u00a0 In the first book, Donovan\u2019s heroine was not even named.\u00a0 She was just functioning as a ghostwriter (and amateur sleuth) for a Hilary Clinton-esque politician, who had recently lost an election. In the second, after writing about the … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1057,1547,1544,162,1489,1276,2525],"class_list":["post-7090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-amateur-sleuth","tag-ghostwriter","tag-kemper-donovan","tag-kensington-books","tag-kidnapping","tag-robin-agnew","tag-sweet-spot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7090","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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7090"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7099,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7090\/revisions\/7099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}