"All we're saying is that if you keep inviting dead things into your life, it could open the door. You never know what path a spirit has taken until they are in your head. Don't let them know there is a door. Don't let them know that you are the key." - medicine man's warning to Rita Todacheene about her ability to see and converse with the ghosts of murder victims
Rita Todacheene is a forensic photographer with the Albuquerque police department. She is especially good at her job because of the direction she often gets from the ghosts of people whose dead bodies she is photographing. Now, because police investigators have learned that Rita's photographs often provide exactly the evidence they need to get a murder conviction, she works extra-long hours that leave her mentally and physically in a constant state of near exhaustion.
Seeing and talking with ghosts is not a recently acquired skill for Rita. It all began when she was a little girl, but Rita quickly learned never to tell her grandmother or school friends about the ghosts that visit her because it scared them. Both her grandmother and the tribe's medicine man fear that Rita's mind might be taken over one day by a ghost with evil intentions, and they beg her to stop allowing frustrated ghosts to use her for their own purposes.
As it turns out, Rita should have heeded their advice while she had the chance, because after a particularly relentless and vengeful ghost latches on to her, it is way too late. Now she has both crooked cops and a powerful Mexican drug cartel searching for her. And if they find her, Rita is likely to become a ghost herself.
Shutter works exceptionally well during the part of the book that alternates chapter flashbacks to Rita's girlhood with chapters set in the present. It is fascinating to watch the little girl's interaction with the ghosts as she adapts herself to the realization that they are a secret she can share with no one. Unfortunately, after the flashback chapters and the present day chapters finally merge fully into real time, the novel becomes more a typical crime thriller with a predictable ending. Shutter is a solid three-star debut novel, however, and I look forward to seeing what Ramona Emerson publishes next.
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| Ramona Emerson author photo |
I thought Emerson did a good job of interweaving moments from Rita's past with her present situation, and I loved how the setting felt so authentic and real. I hope she writes a sequel, because I'd love to see more of Rita.
ReplyDeleteI really liked Rita as a main character, too. I think I'd prefer a prequel to a sequel, though, just because it was so much fun to watch little girl Rita learn to cope with her "skill."
ReplyDeleteHi Sam, It sounds like Ramona Emerson has the making of a good series. Going forward she can explore more about Native American culture and I enjoy books set in New Mexico. Never been there but it seems like a very spiritual place with vast desert but also culture and Albuquerque is a reasonably big city.
ReplyDeleteIt would make a very good series, I think, but Emerson sure doesn't seem to be in a hurry to get a second book published - either a series book or a standalone. I don't think she sees herself primarily as a writer, so that may explain the delay between books. Or, of course, she may just be one of those writers who are going to take more than one year between books. I guess time will tell.
DeleteSo many people have read this book and liked it so I will probably try it someday, but I really think this goes beyond my level of comfort with supernatural elements in a mystery. On the other hand, I accept those elements in the Dr. Siri Paiboun series by Colin Cotterill. They seem to me to be more subdued in that series, but not sure about that.
ReplyDeleteIt's pretty high on the supernaturalness scale for sure, Tracy, requiring definite buy-in from the reader on that possibility or the story falls apart. But if you can suspend your disbelief long enough, Rita is an interesting character and the storytelling is very well done.
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