RATING: 1.75I have to admit to a bias in my mystery reading, and that is the fact that I really do not care for the part of the genre inhabited by amateur sleuths. Generally speaking, the protagonist tends to meddle in areas where they don't belong, unnecessarily exposing themselves and others to danger, and often behaving extremely stupidly. When I began reading The River Killings, I had high hopes based on an exciting opening that I would find a book featuring an amateur sleuth that would appeal to me. I was wrong.Zoe Hayes is a single mother with an adopted 6-year-old daughter, Molly, and a significant other, Nick Stiles, who is a homicide detective. By profession, Zoe is an art therapist. As the book opens, she is on vacation and taking sculling lessons with her best friend, Susan, to prepare for an upcoming race. Nick is an avid rowing enthusiast; becoming involved in the sport is a way for Zoe to share in his interests. Susan and Zoe decide to practice in a quiet environment and go out in their boat one evening. The boat capsizes, almost drowning both of them. The real horror, however, is what caused the incident—they have rowed into a flotilla of dead bodies, 19 Asian women floating in the Schuykill River in Philadelphia. As it turns out, these women were part of a slave trading operation. Once Zoe and Susan are rescued, they are the targets of someone who thinks they have seen something that they shouldn't have.The book progresses through a series of threatening situations and dangerous episodes. Of course, Zoe is at the center of almost every event, despite the fact that she is living with a cop. As a matter of fact, she saves HIS life, although she finds herself in terrible danger several times. Zoe is in jeopardy; Molly is in jeopardy; Susan is in jeopardy; Nick is in jeopardy—if they had any pets, they would be in jeopardy too. There are at least ten different bad things that happen, and several people end up dead. There are people in disguise, people who are mentally unbalanced, people who like to hurt other people. Unfortunately, there are no smart people.Putting my problems with the plot aside, I had a hard time liking any of the characters in the book. The best friend, Susan, is a neurotic pain in the butt. Six-year-old Molly is a precocious child. At times, that is endearing but in general, she comes across as obnoxious and spoiled. For example, she tells her mother she is not going to school and Zoe caves in to her demands. She often speaks as if she were an adult, and her role in the resolution of the book is wildly implausible. If I had liked Zoe more, that would have helped. As it was, I found her to be overly impetuous and lacking the common sense to know when and when not to get involved in dangerous situations. Certainly, she loved her daughter—it was mind boggling to me that she would leave her alone in a boathouse late at night. And the fact that she didn't trust Nick didn't help in building any sympathy when things were difficult between them.I think that The River Killings could have been a really good book if Jones had focused in on one main plot and possibly a few sub-plots. It would have been really interesting to me to learn more about the whole slave trade operation, exactly how it worked, the kinds of lives the women who were enslaved led and the motivations of the people organizing the operation. The whole issue was basically ignored. The women had been manacled, marked, murdered and dumped into the river—doesn't that just cry out for some elaboration?On the plus side, Jones did a good job with the Boathouse Row setting in Philadelphia and descriptions of the rowing. She does well with building suspense; however, that was somewhat diluted by her tendency to write in very short chapters as soon as the excitement started to rise.Based on the success of Jones' first book, The Nanny Killings, I'm sure that this book will appeal to someone. Unfortunately, it's just not my cup of tea.
