Time Expired

Jill Smith #8

by Susan Dunlap

While investigating a phony hostage situation, Jill Smith interviews lawyer Madelaine Riordan, but when she returns for a second interview and finds Madelaine dead, she must add another crime to the case.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction

247 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Susan Dunlap is best known for her Jill Smith detective series, but she is a prolific and much loved writer of crime and mystery fiction, including award-winning short stories.

Reviews

[Erica Callahan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jill Smith is a homicide detective with the Berkeley Police department. When she is called in is the lead hostage negotiator in a hostage situation, she finds herself in the middle of an even bigger mystery. Someone has been going around playing pranks on the meter maids. After questioning a resident in a nearby nursing home, the resident ends up dead the next night. Now Jill must determine the connection between her murder in the parking meter pranks.

While some of the story was easy to figure out, there were parts that were very surprising. Susan Dunlap adds a bit of comedy in that you can't help but laugh at the small pranks described. Very well done.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had some trouble following the story as it involved two separate cases. While investigating a series of parking meter pranks involving meter maids, the detective interviews an old adversarial attorney who later ends up murdered. How were they connected, or were they? Once I figured out who dunnit, circumstances changed.

[Kathy Spann · Rating 4 out of 5]

At times funny, loved the character revealed in Jill Smith. Gave an inside look to the cop’s reality.

[LJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

TIME EXPIRED - Good
Dunlap - Susan - 8th in series

It was part street theater, part civil disobedience, and pure Berkeley: Someone was waging guerrilla warfare on the city's meter maids and their beloved parking meters. But when the prankster took detective Jill Smith and her colleagues on a wild chase into a deep, overgrown ravine, the game led to murder. The dead woman was Madeleine Riordan. A firebrand attorney who was not above an act of civil disobedience herself, Madeleine spent her last days in a nursing home that was perched on the edge of a ravine. Praying into the extraordinary life and times of Madeleine Riordan, Jill discovered a strange connection between the meter capers and the frail, cancer stricken woman who had once been an unyielding defender of individual liberties. And then Jill found something else: a crime Madelene had witnessed, and died trying to stop. . .

Set in Berkeley. It was light, but okay.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

I reread this book and liked is just as much the second time around. I took a lot of pleasure in the local since it took place very close to where I live and featured geography and people very familiar to me. The story was well done and the depiction of Berkeley parking ticket nastiness was right on! Most members of our family have had to deal with that unpleasantness at some time or other. The book got an extra star just because it was so much fun for me. Others might rank it a little lower if they were not as familiar with the terrain as I am including the very hidden canyon that very few people even know is there.

[Ryan Mishap · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like most mystery series that don't shake things up considerable, they get a little stale. Some authors repeat the same couple of patterns. Dunlap is a little guilty of that, but this one has a good premise and then goes elsewhere.

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

#8 in the Berkley, CA homicide detective Jill Smith mystery series. Jill is investigating a series of escalating pranks against Berkley parking meter enforcers which brings her in to contact with residents of care home which appears to be connected. At times interesting.

[Cws]

M Dun

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jill Smith #8

[bex · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure why this book did not deserve more stars. It just didn't.

[Stacy]

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/3588625