The River Killings

by Merry Jones

Book Overview

On vacation from her art therapy job, Zoe Hayes takes a sculling class with her best friend, Susan. When their boat capsizes, Zoe and Susan find themselves flailing about amongst a mysterious throng of floating corpses.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312998635
• ISBN13: 9780312998639
• Release Date: November 2007
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 344 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 4.3" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

thrilling read!

Zoë Hayes, an art therapist in Philadelphia, has returned in The River Killings, sequel to The Nanny Murders. Zoë and her best friend Susan have taken up sculling on the Schuylkill River and have gone for a quiet, late night practice when their boat tips them into a group of dead bodies - floaters. This is the beginning of another emotional roller coaster for Zoë as she ends up amidst a human trafficking investigation headed up by her boyfriend Detective Nick Stiles in cooperation with the FBI. After Zoë and Susan report the floaters in the Schuylkill River to the police, they find that they are unwillingly drawn into the world of human trafficking. Once the newspapers published their names in connection with the bodies in the river, they are approached by many strangers asking for whatever information they have from their dip in the river. Not knowing whom to trust, they deny all knowledge, but this doesn't seem to convince anyone. Susan is the victim of a car-jacking while Zoë is zealously cleaning her house after a break-in. Zoë still has trust issues with Nick, and his new case isn't helping matters when Zoë feels that she, having found the bodies, should be privy to information on the case. When Nick accidentally leaves his email account open, Zoë abuses her ideals by investigating the contents without his consent. By doing so, she finds out there is more going on in her personal life than just an accidental dip in the river. Nick's past is coming back to haunt them, bringing Zoë and her daughter Mollie into a turbulent maelstrom of peril. Susan and Zoë persist in their sculling training for a local competition and they find that there are a lot of undercurrents in their new hobby that have nothing to do with water. Who, in their acquaintance, could possibly be committing such a heinous act against fellow humans? After a big argument, Nick storms off to calm down, until Zoë follows her intuition that Nick is in danger. She sets out to find him, once again endangering herself but realizing that she must trust herself before she can trust anyone else. This is an impressive mystery, following the troubles of a single mother who is trying to do her best to get by in a violent world. We are able to share in her ups and downs and her daily activities and interactions with her friends and see how Zoë manages to wind up in the middle of murder and violence without fault of her own. There is a bit of naïveté to her personality that is not always credible, and at times she doesn't seem to learn from her mistakes. But her panic and fear do give some of her behaviors credibility. Cozy readers would be uncomfortable with the violence and high body count, but the mystery is intriguing, the characters personable, and the rapid pace disconcerting. [...]

Suspenseful Thriller Combines Murder, Slave Trafficking, and Rowing

Set against the backdrop of the Humberton Barge, a fictional rowing club located on Philadelphia's famed Boathouse Row, "The River Killings" offers the reader a suspense-filled tale of murder combined with the sport of rowing. Best friends Zoe Hayes and Susan Cummings are practicing with determination to enter the summer's first rowing race, the Navy Regatta. While rowing on the Schuykill during a late night practice, the two women accidentally flip their boat, only to discover a floating armada of nineteen corpses, who turn out to all be Asian women. after this nightmarish boating mishap, the two heroines endure a carjacking, a break-in at Zoe's home, and a strange woman apparantly following Zoe's six-year old daughter Molly. The police quickly determine that the nineteen dead women were Asian "slaves", and Zoe and Susan wonder if the carjacking and break-in are related to their grisly discovery. Zoe and Susan are visited by other mysterious characters who claim to be investigating the deaths of the Asian women as the suspense builds in this novel. The story line of the mysterious deaths of the women kept me turning the pages. The reason that I gave this novel only four stars, though, was the fact that I found it difficult to empathize with the main character of Zoe Hayes. I could not believe the number of times Zoe's character left her six-year old daughter alone in the middle of the night to deal with various crises in the story. Also, I felt that Zoe spent an unreasonable amouont of time in the story feeling sorry for herself. I did enjoy the rowing aspect of the story immensely. Author Jones did a good job of presenting enough information about the sport of rowing to give the reader an appreciation for it without drowning the reader in too many details. "The River Killings" was an enjoyable, suspenseful read set against an interesting background.

superb Philadelphia mystery

Best friends, therapist Zoe Hayes and attorney Susan Cummings, have taken up rowing on the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia as an entertaining form of exercise. However, one night while on the river, their boat capsizes leaving the two females clinging to the overturned vessel when a flotilla of corpses floats by them. The FBI and Zoe's live-in boyfriend Homicide Detective Nick Stiles question her and Susan, who offer nothing. Zoe soon learns that the victims were nineteen Asians brought illegally to be sold as human sex slaves by traffickers. Following a break-in and a car jacking, thugs continue to threaten the two women and their children. Zoe realizes she needs to act because the slave traders will stop at nothing to insure no witnesses remain alive. Though the subplot involving Nick's ex sister in law adds suspense, it is unneeded as plenty is already going on with Zoe in deeper trouble with some lethal adversaries insuring no witnesses survive. Zoe is a fascinating heroic character who at times seems so very innocent because she "merrily" plunges into dangerous situations without a second thought; the audience will shout at her to cease her activities (she behaves similar to the way bimbos die in teen slasher movies). Still THE RIVER KILLINGS is a fine amateur sleuth- police procedural that the audience will appreciate and readers will want Zoe and Nick to return as stars of future Philadelphia mysteries. Harriet Klausner