This Enemy Town

July 18, 2005
Agatha– and Anthony Award–winner Talley's predictable fifth Hannah Ives cozy fails to take full advantage of its intriguing premise: the victim is discovered on the set of a navy production of the Stephen Sondheim musical Sweeney Todd
. Ives, a cancer survivor, quickly becomes the chief suspect, since her fingerprints are found on the hammer used to fatally bludgeon Jennifer Goodall, who was the Naval Academy's sexual assault victim intervention officer. Years before, Goodall had earned Ives's enmity by falsely accusing the amateur sleuth's husband of sexual harassment. Stunned to find herself in cuffs, Ives loses no opportunity, once bail is posted, to seek the truth. Despite references to the Clinton "don't ask, don't tell" policy toward homosexuals and to procurement scandals resulting from the ongoing war in Iraq, the author doesn't make her setting convincing; even the scene describing a visit to the Pentagon memorial for the victims of 9/11 will leave many readers unmoved. Agent, James C. Vines.

September 1, 2005
In the fifth novel in Talleys series (In Deaths Shadow), Hannah Ives is now a faculty wife at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD, where her husband, Paul, teaches mathematics. She comes to the aid of fellow breast cancer patient Dorothy Hart, who has been recruited to build sets for the academy glee club production of Sweeney Todd. Into all this Sondheim mania walks Jennifer Goodall, the former student who had accused Paul of sexual harassment. When Jennifer ends up bludgeoned to death with one of Hannahs hammers, the FBI and Naval Criminal Investigative Service come knocking. True to her nature, Hannah usurps the investigation to clear her name. Talley uses her own breast cancer experience to paint her plucky heroine, though Hannahs illness seems superfluous to the action. In fact, the foundation for the plot is naval academy life and regulations, including Dont ask, dont tell. This reviewer had several questions even as Hannah reveals the killer, but Talley answers them up by the final page. Not overly suspenseful, with perhaps too neat a conclusion, this is a pleasant diversion; recommended for public libraries. [See Prepub Mystery, LJ 5/1/05.]BetteLee Fox, Library Journal

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