The Mountains Bow Down by Sibella Giorello

The Mountains Bow Down by Sibella Giorello

Copyright 2011

Thomas Nelson - Mystery

4th in the Raleigh Harmon series

373 pages

Sibella Giorello's website

I've only read two of the books in the Raleigh Harmon mystery series (apparently, the first book had a different publisher) but I think it's worth mentioning, up front, that the books stand alone well. In the third book, The Clouds Roll Away, Raleigh solved a murder and made a personal decision that she's now questioning, hoping time and distance will help her find an answer.

The Mountains Bow Down takes Raleigh away from her home. The entire book is set on or near the ship on which she takes a cruise to Alaska with her mother, her aunt and another woman. Raleigh, a forensic geologist working for the FBI, is serving as a consultant to a movie crew filming an action flick on board, although she has plans to explore Alaska's geology and get some much-needed mental rest.

But, when a woman goes missing and is found dead of an apparent suicide, Raleigh's vacation becomes a working trip. The suicide is suspicious and Raleigh has a limited amount of time to prove the woman was murdered before the cruise ends and a killer walks away. After asking for help from the FBI, her handsome rival from Seattle, Special Agent Jack Stephanson, shows up to assist. Jack treated her like a jerk when she was working in Seattle, but now he's oddly kind and surprises Raleigh by treating her with a fair amount of respect -- which, naturally, only adds confusion to her complicated personal life.

Will Raleigh change her mind about that decision she made back home? Can she protect her mother from information she's sure will send her mom beyond the edge of sanity? Will Raleigh be able to solve the murder before it's too late?

Well . . . it's a mystery and mysteries get solved so I think I can safely say you know the answer to the last question, but the journey to the answer is really quite a ride. Not being a big mystery fan, I was pretty surprised how gripping I found The Clouds Roll Away and how much I liked the stolid (but privately emotional) heroine and I can tell you Raleigh is consistent and I liked her just as much in The Mountains Bow Down.

What I loved about The Mountains Bow Down:

I really like Raleigh Harmon. She's a fascinating character. When I read The Clouds Roll Away, I thought she sounded like the kind of woman you hear about in Alaska -- the kind who can hike a mountain, camp for weeks without whining, build a cabin, heft food into the trees, shoot a moose, defend herself from a bear and then go home and make a meal for an entire village. Alaskan women are tough!! So, it really didn't surprise me to find out the author is a native Alaskan and I was actually hoping the author would eventually set a book in Alaska. While there's not a lot of Alaska in the book because it mostly takes place on the cruise ship, there was enough talk about the beauty of Alaska and the towns the ship visited to satisfy me.

The mystery itself was suitably complex (Giorello kept me guessing right up to the end) without becoming overwhelming and the other characters were well described. I was so fond of Jack and the man in Seattle who was Raleigh's former boss that now I'm absolutely dying to go back to the beginning to read the first two books in the series. I love, love, love the fact that Raleigh is a big eater. There are so many female characters who worry about food and their weight in fiction that it's nice to read about one who can put away a big meal, for a change. In general, The Mountains Bow Down is an engrossing read with excellent characterization, taut plotting and intelligent writing.

What I disliked about The Mountains Bow Down:

Oh, hmm. I can't think of anything. There are some icky characters but some of the movie people were meant to be overblown, arrogant, unlikable caricatures -- or, maybe I should use the word archetypes -- but I didn't find that they pushed believability beyond reason. There are some graphic descriptions of filth, a bit of gory body description and sexual deviance. The language is clean and there are occasional thoughts about Christianity on Raleigh's part, but I would say it's not for the faint of heart and in some ways deserves an R rating. It's been long enough since I finished reading the book that a few things have slipped away and I'm not certain how graphic the talk about the nastiest characters was, but it did turn my stomach a bit.

Recommended for mystery and thriller fans. Definitely not for the squeamish.

Cover thoughts: While I love the look of the cover, if you look very close it appears that the view of the skyline from the ship is . . . well, more like Hawaii than Alaska. But, the rest of the image is okay. I have a feeling there was a bit of cut-and-paste involved in the making of that cover, but it fits the story if you don't look too closely.

In other news:

I had a busy-busy week but I'm way too tired to write about it. Maybe later. The coming months are going to be unusually hectic for me, so I'm considering making only weekly or bi-weekly updates (apart from the 2 remaining tours I have scheduled). That would mean weekly mini-reviews and probably the usual Fiona Friday posts. The alternative is to do only monthly updates; I definitely will not have time for frequent posting but I don't want to give up the blog completely. Thoughts are welcome.

Fiona missed you:

But, she had an excellent time watching birds. So did Isabel.

Did anyone get to see the Supermoon? We lucked out and got to see it from the moment it rose over the horizon to well after it lost that gorgeous orange glow. But, we had to hop into the car and rush to the high school parking lot to take pictures because trees were blocking the view. I had loads of fun snapping pictures and have really enjoyed looking at the gorgeous photos other folks took.

I managed to finish Cutting for Stone in time for my F2F book group's meeting. I'll tell you about that, later. Gotta get some shut-eye. Nightie-night!

©2011 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

The Clouds Roll Away by Sibella Giorello

The Clouds Roll Away: A Raleigh Harmon Novel

by Sibella Giorello

Copyright 2010

Thomas Nelson - Suspense/Christian

322 pages

Whenever I thought I was right, I forgot to listen for the sibilant whisper. Hearing only my own counsel, my righteous insistence, I failed to hear the asp slithering through the grass. It was only later, in the messy aftermath, that I began to peel away the justifications and rationalizations, the false logic and shifting blame, until I was left with one small dark object, resting in the palm of my hand like an apple seed.

My hasty choice.

After several months working in the FBI's Seattle office (as punishment, possibly for insubordination but I never quite figured that out), Raleigh Harmon has barely settled into her home in Richmond, Virginia when a cross is burned on the lawn of a plantation owned by a celebrity rapper known as "RPM". Hate crimes are high-profile, high-priority cases and Raleigh, a forensic geologist, has a limited amount of time to solve the crime.

Raleigh's personal life is just as messy as her job. Her widowed mother, Nadine, suddenly wants to celebrate Christmas for the first time since her husband was murdered and she also seems determined to place Raleigh in the path of Raleigh's former boyfriend, DeMott. And Nadine's companion is suddenly angry and distant after he begins to work as a photographer for the targeted rapper.

As Raleigh digs deeper to solve the crime, she slowly uncovers a tangled web that leads in unexpected directions with interconnected crimes testing her skills and a boss and home life forcing her to rely heavily on her faith to guide her and provide clarity.

What I liked about The Clouds Roll Away:

I'm not much of a suspense/mystery reader, but this particular book sounded so fascinating that I signed up for a book tour. And, I have to say . . . wow. I was really impressed. Raleigh Harmon is a fascinating character and in The Clouds Roll Away, the author pretty much plunks her in the middle of a ring of fire with a cup of water (metaphorically speaking). The challenges she faces, both personally and professionally, are so overwhelming that you can't help but race through the book.

I was absolutely dying to know what would happen and surprised by how beautifully the author tied together seemingly diverse strands and then had her character solve the crime while dealing with a boss who obviously couldn't stand her, a mother who was either flipping out or suddenly improving (a conundrum that carried a startling ring of truth) and a shaken faith as her father's murder remained unsolved.

The Clouds Roll Away is the second in a series and it stands alone fine, but it's so well written that I want to read the first book, merely on the merits of the second -- although, I also wouldn't mind knowing what exactly Raleigh did to end up getting sent to Seattle. If that was described, it didn't stick with me. Raleigh is one tough cookie. I love the character.

What I disliked about The Clouds Roll Away:

Since The Clouds Roll Away is a Thomas Nelson publication, you have to expect some talk about God -- and, as a Christian, I like a "clean" (no sex, no bad language -- but this one does have some graphic description of crime scenes) read. I appreciated that about this book but I thought occasionally the segue into thoughts about faith was a little odd and didn't quite fit the tone.

Raleigh's thoughts about God and faith become less jarring the farther you get into the story, though, so I think it was really a case of not knowing the character and where she was coming from. Once I got to know Raleigh, her thoughts started to make a lot more sense and didn't seem to just come out of the blue. I did occasionally get tripped up by her writing style, which can be a little confusing at times, but there was never a point that I felt hopelessly lost.

A rather irrelevant side note:

There was one minor error that I thought was rather interesting. Raleigh refers to a record her mother is playing as an "RPM". I assume the author wasn't around in the days of vinyl because "RPM" stands for "revolutions per minute" and refers to the speed at which a vinyl album was played -- or would be, if you still had your old record player and you haven't gotten rid of your old vinyl. I think she meant an "LP" or long-playing album, as opposed to a single but that's just picky details. I can't believe I'm so old that the music I grew up with (some of which is still tucked in a cabinet) is now referred to as "antique". Eeks.

The bottom line:

Stunning writing, a complex and satisfying mystery and a kick-butt heroine make this book a page-turner. The book gets a family warning for graphic description of crime scenes but is otherwise clean -- no bad language, no sex, just lots of emotion and a rocking fine plot.

Cover thoughts:

The cover doesn't exactly scream, "Suspense! Mystery!" It looks placid, actually, and I think it's absolutely beautiful but it did surprise me that the crimes involved were so intense and even a bit on the gory side. And, yet, the book is as much about Raleigh returning to her hometown during a snowy Christmas and facing her own personal demons as it is about Raleigh Harmon solving a crime. After closing the book, I think the cover fits. It's got a pensive look, an image of the character that fits (before her haircut -- you have to read it to get the implications that come with the haircut) and the snowy Richmond setting. It's really perfect.

FTC notice:

I received a copy of The Clouds Roll Away for a book tour. My thanks to Thomas Nelson and LitFuse for the review copy.

Coming up:

I actually kept meticulous notes on the books that entered and left my house, this past week! I'll write about them in a separate post very soon; and, after I write my review of Why We Need Love, I'll also post a round-up of my November reads.

I've been holding off on the November list until I've managed to review everything I finished reading in November, so that I can provide links to all of my reviews. And, then I believe I have one or two more reviews and I'll take off a couple of weeks from blogging for Christmas break and ponder my reading and life resolutions for next year. Yes, I still do that -- Lord knows why. It's not like I'm good at keeping my resolutions, but I still plan to try. Are you making plans for 2011?

©2010 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.