Out of Order

December 19, 2005
Edgar-nominee Benoit's assured second mystery (after 2004's Relative Danger
) introduces 27-year-old Jason Talley, a nerdy Corning, N.Y., loan processor whose rare heroic gesture launches him on a journey into danger and romance. When Talley's married friends, Sriram and Vidya Sundaram, are found dead in their apartment, victims of an apparent murder-suicide, the shaken Talley decides to go to India to deliver a special sari to Sriram's mother. He also alerts friends and colleagues of Sriram's from a failed high-tech startup company that he's en route to their country. The sedate tour group that Jason joins is a disaster until he's "rescued" by Rachel Moore, a beautiful train-mad woman who's as adventurous as Jason is not. Soon the two are traveling on their own, meeting up with Sriram's bitter or forgiving ex-colleagues. The search for Sriram's mother, Rachel's madcap unpredictability and the stalking of Jason by one or more of Sriram's former partners add up to a spicy quest tale in an India at once modern and ancient.

February 1, 2006
Jason Talley, a loan officer in a mortgage company, arrives home one day to find that his neighbors and good friends are dead and the police believe it to be a murder/suicide. Sriram, a computer expert, and his wife were from India, and Jason decides to travel there to deliver a beautiful red sari that Sriram had intended for his mother. When Jason arrives in Delhi, he soon discovers that everything he knows or thinks he knows about his friend is wrong. He doggedly moves through India experiencing culture shock, attacks on his life, and even love. Recommended. Benoit lives in Rochester, NY.

Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2006
Benoit's second novel, after the outstanding " Relative Danger "(2004), is a bit of a disappointment. He again features a clueless but likable protagonist who embarks on a jaunt to distant lands. This time the hero, Jason Talley, of Upstate New York, is thrust into an international adventure when he travels to India to return a sari to the mother of his friend Sriram, who died, along with his wife, in an apparent murder-suicide. It wasn't, of course, and soon enough Jason discovers that his friend had lots of enemies. Readers of " Relative Danger" will find this -follow-up tiresomely similar, but the engaging tour of India's back roads helps offset the deja vu.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)