Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Sacred Cows by Karen E. Olson

I've read and loved Karen E. Olson's other mystery series, which I reviewed a few months ago. I've been wanting to read her first series, this one, but her books are hard to find. My local B&N doesn't carry her at all, and Sacred Cows doesn't seem to be available at all except as an ebook. So I downloaded the ebook.

Annie Seymour is a reporter and has been for years. She's not happy with the way her newspaper, the New Haven Herald, has become more interested in keeping the tourists and powers that be happy than in actually digging into stories. When a Yale student turns up dead, and her murder seems connected to a local bigshot, Annie tries to ferret out the real story. Before long, she's become a target--not just of the murderer, but of her own boss, who's been told to bury the story and have Annie take a mandatory vacation.

I loved Annie, who's bitter and cynical and doesn't give a shit what people think of her, but I suspect a lot of people would dislike her. Probably this is one of those books you either love or hate. I loved it, and I can't wait to read the sequels I've already downloaded. The mystery is clever, the characters fascinating. Best of all, the book is funny. I highly recommend it and I'll be going into far more detail about why once I've finished reading the sequels.

Powell's link (I've linked to a used copy of this book, but please support the author and buy new if you can find the book)

2 comments:

Karen Olson said...

So glad to hear you loved SACRED COWS. The reason you can't find any of that series in B&N is that all of them are out of print. They are, as you discovered, all available as ebooks and many libraries do carry them (although the second, SECONDHAND SMOKE, seems to be scarcer than any of the others). I hope you enjoy them!

K.C. Shaw said...

I just finished SECONDHAND SMOKE and really enjoyed it too! It's a shame they're out of print, but I'm happy the ebooks are available.