grayduck's review
Reviewed 4/21/2005
Alex Bernier is such an awesome character. She's the kind of character that, if she truly existed, I would want to hang out with. She's witty and funny and gets into stupid situations and can hold her own with a bunch of machismo guys and she can drink them under the table. She lives in a small college town (a thinly veiled Ithaca). She writes for the paper and is kind of a parasite - but she gets all wound up in crazy murder mysteries that usually involve the deaths of her friends and acquaintances. And she usually saves the day.
In Ecstasy, Alex is duped into covering the Melting Rock Music Festival. It seemed pretty similar to Bonnaroo - music, bad food, camping out, lots of folks being crazy. It's Alex's worst nightmare. She meets a group of some high school seniors, does a story on them, and then they start dying off after taking some bad acid in the night.
Alex bumps heads with the town cops (one of whom she's dating), the College Faculty, the Professors' Wives (a particularly nasty group of women, I should say) environmental terrorists, the local branch of the mafia, the New York Times, and fluffy new-agers that read the wind and magically predict the future. It's just a great book. The story might not completely hold water, but if you are able to suspend reality and just enjoy a book, this is a great light summer read. It is the fifth of the five Alex Bernier mysteries. I've read them in exact opposite order, and I don't think it made that much of a difference. If I could do it again, though, I'd start at the beginning.
Alex Bernier is such an awesome character. She's the kind of character that, if she truly existed, I would want to hang out with. She's witty and funny and gets into stupid situations and can hold her own with a bunch of machismo guys and she can drink them under the table. She lives in a small college town (a thinly veiled Ithaca). She writes for the paper and is kind of a parasite - but she gets all wound up in crazy murder mysteries that usually involve the deaths of her friends and acquaintances. And she usually saves the day.
In Ecstasy, Alex is duped into covering the Melting Rock Music Festival. It seemed pretty similar to Bonnaroo - music, bad food, camping out, lots of folks being crazy. It's Alex's worst nightmare. She meets a group of some high school seniors, does a story on them, and then they start dying off after taking some bad acid in the night.
Alex bumps heads with the town cops (one of whom she's dating), the College Faculty, the Professors' Wives (a particularly nasty group of women, I should say) environmental terrorists, the local branch of the mafia, the New York Times, and fluffy new-agers that read the wind and magically predict the future. It's just a great book. The story might not completely hold water, but if you are able to suspend reality and just enjoy a book, this is a great light summer read. It is the fifth of the five Alex Bernier mysteries. I've read them in exact opposite order, and I don't think it made that much of a difference. If I could do it again, though, I'd start at the beginning.
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