Blinded By The Light

DETAILS

Title: BLINDED BY THE LIGHT

Author: Morgan Hunt

Publisher: Alyson Books, Aug 2008

ISBN: 1593500858

Genre: Lesbian Fiction | Murder-Mystery

BACKCOVER BLURB

“When Tess’ work takes her to Albuquerque for a temp assignment, she decides to visit the Lightning Field, an earthworks art piece constructed of 400 lightning rods arranged in an intriguing way out in the New Mexican desert. The remote locale is disrupted when a fellow visitor is apparently killed by lightning. Tess knows it was no accident, and how she solves this crime is quite a shocker!”

WHAT I THOUGHT

One of the most important things I’ve taken away from reading Morgan Hunt’s Tess Camillo trilogy of books is, do not take anything for granted. Nothing, as everything can often be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so don’t waste it. You may never get another chance. That’s just how Hunt’s eloquently, light-hearted, wryly and deftly written prose gets you.

Morgan Hunt dearly loves words as I love words, and it shows in every wonderfully crafted sentence she writes. Not only does Hunt know how to wrangle them, but use them to good effect. From her opening paragraph to her parting shot at the end of each chapter, she has you thumbing pages at such a rate with her droll, snarky humour and social commentary that you are, yes, almost blinded by her wit.

In this, her third outing, amateur sleuth, Tess Camillo is once again in the thick of murder. This time we are out in the deserts of New Mexico at a place called the Lightning Field. An experimental artwork where one of the guests is found dead, supposedly by a lightning strike from the previous night’s storm, but like Tess, we know different. And, not to give away too much and spoil the read, you just know that Hunt will have Tess come at this suspicious death in her own unusual way, to solve a murder. Which, as always, is done with a great deal of light-hearted humour and with the observational wit a great many of us have come to love.

The other pleasant thing about Hunt’s work is, that you don’t have to have read book one (or even, book two) to enjoy and appreciate this third novel featuring Tess. Hunt fleshes out her characters with plenty of foibles and flaws, gives just the right amount of background to bring you up to speed, and then pulls you along with a clever blend of action and romance, giving the reader a fun ride.

I love Tess; I love her almost as much as I love her author, Morgan Hunt. Both are emotional, intelligent, and yes, flawed women who have a great deal in common, both have survived breast-cancer.

Go have a read, and you too might thoroughly enjoy Hunt’s devilish wit.