Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1395226 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 280 pages

Customer Reviews

Funny, bizzare and engrossing.
Bad Lands is the first in a proposed mystery series by Selena Rosen and Laura J. Underwood. The "detectives" -Maggie Holmes and Vivian Storm are just about the oddest pair you could imagine. Maggie is a widowed, semi-retired middle-aged forensic pathologist who has a fascination with paranormal activity at murder sites. Her partner is a 30-something smart-mouthed lesbian bartender who moonlights as a police sketch artist and who is able to get uncanny descriptions of murderers because she relives the last moments of the deceased.

When Maggie is denied access to Knight Island-a private resort where there were mass murders on two different occasions, and where she wants to go to do research for her next book, she jumps on the chance to go as a contestant on the reality show 'Chicken Out'. The problem is, the show is only taking couples, so she tells them that she and Vivian are. Now she has to figure out how to break the news to Vivian that they've been accepted.

However, once they arrive, the stakes become higher than either had counted on as the bodies start piling up.

I really enjoyed this book. The characters are likable and believable if flawed and a little obnoxious at times. Rosen and Underwood have woven together a good story that leaves you guessing until the end. When you think you know who did it...think again. All-in-all, a book I'd highly recommend and a sequel I'm looking forward to.

Move over, Monk and Sharona -- here comes Holmes and Storm!
"Bad Lands" is a marvelous mystery/thriller debut by the writing team of Selina Rosen and Laura J. Underwood. Known for their SF and fantasy novels, Rosen and Underwood team up to deliver a gut-punch of a thriller featuring the unlikely pairing of Vivian Storm, a salty police sketch artist with the ability to "see" the last moments of someone's death, and Maggie Holmes, a forensic pathologist in a money crunch.

When Holmes signs the pair up for a reality show set on the "haunted" Knight Island, things turn bloody as someone -- or something -- starts slaughtering the show's contestants one by one, mimicking the previous massacres on the island. Now Holmes and Storm must solve a 10-year-old mystery if they want to get off the island alive.

If you like tautly paced mysteries, snappy dialogue and one of the most ingenious pairings since Monk and Sharona Fleming, you'll love "Bad Lands".

Badlands a place you should visit
Its rare that I find a book that I cannot put down. But Badlands was one of these books. I started out wanting a nice whodunnit for bedtime reading, and soon I found myself carrying this book with me everywhere and reading it in snatches of stolen time while at the Doctor's office and in the check out line at the supermarket.

The unreliable narrator is done very well in this book, with each author trading up writing duties on the chapters and setting them in the viewpoint of their character.

Although Vivian Storm kept me in stitches with her quirks (Including giving everyone and every thing an alternate name, from dubbing Kennedy, the producer of Chicken Out "Dead President Guy" to describing Maggie's ghostbusting equipment "spectrowhatzits".), Maggie Holmes isn't without her own humor. As the bodies start to stack up and the game falls apart, the seemingly level-headed Maggie bemoans the fact that the murders are interrupting her scientific investigation of the island.

I recommend Bad Lands to anyone who enjoys a fast-paced thriller.