The Anonymous Source by A.C. Fuller
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This pleasant mystery features a reporter as the primary investigator. He teams up with a lovely professor whose boyfriend-professor was recently killed. All this is set in the backdrop of the aftermath of the 9-11 World Trade Center attacks. The plot tends toward the hackneyed, with evil corporate types and a hired diabolical Ukrainian killer. It’s rather far-fetched, but the writing style is accurate and easy to read for grammar nazis like me.
The sparks take forever to fly between the main characters, and when they do, the ignition is implausibly missing. Still, that aspect was done tastefully, avoiding the crudeness you find in other examples of the genre. I’m not sure most mystery readers want tasteful, though. The settings range from New York to Hawaii and the main characters are mostly believable (which cannot be said for the auxiliary ones.) I’ll say this for it – I didn’t figure out who the anonymous source was. The final reveal was a good jolt of an ending.
I downloaded this when it was offered free and as a fellow author I know that the least a freeloader can do is write a review. Four stars may be a bit of a stretch, but it was good enough to hold my interest.