Sacred Cows

by Karen E. Olson

Book Overview

Covering the murder of a Yale student who worked evenings as a high-priced escort, police reporter Annie Seymour finds her investigation of the murder compromised by her stonewalling cop boyfriend and a far-reaching network of corruption.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0892960221
• ISBN13: 9780892960224
• Release Date: September 2005
• Publisher: Mysterious Press
• Length: 290 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.3" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

A rollicking start to a new series

First in a mystery series featuring Annie Seymour, a police-beat newspaper reporter in New Haven, Connecticut. Annie is a hard-edged, cynical, experienced reporter who lives a somewhat chaotic life. When she is awakened at 3 a.m. by her editor telling her there's a dead body and to get her [...]. to the scene and get the story, a whole series of bizarre events is set off, eventually involving her mother's law firm and a private eye who turns out to be a guy that she went to high school with. The situation is complicated by the fact that Annie happens to be dating the police detective in charge of the investigation, and that there's an eager beaver young reporter trying to scoop her at every turn. The young dead woman is a bright Yale student with rich parents, but when Annie discovers from talking to her roommate that she was also employed by a high-class escort service, the higher-ups really get their knickers in a twist! Annie is a very "real" character, one I liked a lot--partly because I recognized a kindred spirit; she talks and thinks a lot like I do. (i.e., this is NOT a cozy! LOL) She's got her faults and is willing to admit to them, and she tells it like she sees it. Annie's rose-colored glasses were long ago stomped on and tossed in the trash, and yet she manages to get through life with her very sharp sense of humor intact. Excellent first in series and I will be following this one very closely! A+

Great debut!

I found myself desperately trying to grab five minutes here and there to read more of this book whenever I could. I hated to put it down. Loved Annie's voice. The mystery was interesting enough, but the love triangle was what grabbed me. I can't wait for the next Annie Seymour book!

A stellar debut

Karen E. Olson's "Sacred Cows" is a standout debut from this veteran journalist. It's the entertaining story of Anne Seymour, a crime reporter in New Haven, Conn., who's working on a juicy story nobody wants her to pursue. Someone is killing Yale co-eds who just happen to work for a local escort service, and the deaths look like they might be tied-in to a crooked city lawyer who has conveniently gone on the lam, taking with him the investment funds of most of the city's elite. Olson writes with a light touch that is the perfect compliment for this charming mystery. The engaging Seymour is a wise and witty character who is good at her job and takes no lip from anyone. Here's hoping she returns for another go-round.

Exciting Debut!

Annie Seymour, a spunky female police reporter is woken in the wee hours of the morning by a phone call. Her boss, Marty, urges the feisty reporter out of bed and hurry down to the scene to get the scoop on a girl's dead body that has been found in the road in front of University Towers. Annie arrives at the scene ready to grill everyone for what information she can, including from Tom, a police detective she's sleeping with. The quick-witted reporter learns that not only did the victim, Melissa Peabody, take a dive from a balcony of University Towers, but she was also a Yale student, not good news for the school or its prestigious image. Annie also uncovers that Melissa led a secret life, as an escort girl. Annie smells a big story brewing as the school battens down the hatches. Her only problems for the moment are a colleague Dick Whitfield who is shadowing every move and she manipulates into doing some of her legwork, Tom who withholds information and a stalker. Despite inconveniences Annie manages to uncover a corruption network, links to important members of the city that may even involve her own attorney mother. When yet another Yale student-turned-escort turns up dead. Sacred Cows, is fast paced and exciting. Its strong plot, often times hilarious dialogue and colorful characters will keep readers involved and aching to solve the mystery! Reviewed by Betsie

Pizza and prostitutes, cows and murder

The girl's body is found in the middle of the night, draped over the sidewalk in front of University Towers in New Haven. Annie Seymour arrives at the scene early, disheveled and hung over but ready to pry what information she can from the policemen on the scene, including the one she'd been sleeping with an hour earlier. Annie, the protagonist of Karen Olson's debut novel Sacred Cows, is the police reporter for the New Haven Herald. (The Herald is a fictional stand-in for the author's real-life employer, the New Haven Register. Olson is the newspaper's travel editor.) Annie has been on the paper's cop beat for four years, but her investigation into this case will mark new territory for her. It is, for one thing, a political hot potato. The deceased is quickly identified as a Yale undergraduate, sophomore Melissa Peabody. The Yale connection means that the Herald will be under considerable pressure from both school and local officials to downplay the seedier aspects of the case. This won't be easy, as the case turns out to be very seedy indeed. Melissa Peabody's murder winds up involving an escort service, and Annie's investigation leads her to uncover some dirty laundry in City Hall itself. The man behind the dirt is New Haven's assistant corporation counsel, Mark Torrey, who was with Melissa on the night she died and may well have killed her. He may kill Annie as well: he is at least not above attempting to silence her by violent means once she gets too close to the truth. Compounding these complications is Annie's personal life: her relationship with the detective working the case amounts to a huge conflict of interest for both of them. Sacred Cows is the first book in what will evidently be a series of Annie Seymour mysteries, and I for one am pleased. Annie is a strong enough character to anchor a series--likeable, but imperfect and given to obscenity and pleasantly curmudgeonly. (After studiously avoiding meeting her neighbors for years, she laments finally coming face-to-face with the people who share her Wooster Square brownstone. "I would have to say hello on the stairs, let them into the building if they forgot their keys, help them with grocery bags. Oh, God, I might have to move.") Much of Annie's cantankerousness is directed at Dick Whitfield, an annoyingly eager but otherwise inoffensive cub reporter type who follows her around puppy-like on this investigation in the hopes of making a name for himself. But others catch Annie's wrath as well--her society matron-cum-successful attorney mother; the mysterious winking man she keeps running into, a sexy Frank Sinatra look-alike who seems to know her; and not least the cows of the book's title, the herd of painted fiberglass bovine statues that descends on New Haven in the middle of the story. The cows annoy Annie by their mere presence in town, particularly after she is ordered to report on their doings for the paper. (Olson takes Annie's negative reaction to the cows a hair's breadth t