Carolyn Jourdan

OK read-a bit unbelievable. Google review:Phoebe McFarland has just moved back to her hometown of White Oak, Tennessee, a sleepy rural community nestled in the mist-shrouded ridges and isolated hollows of the Smoky Mountains. Now she spends her days working as a rural home health care nurse, making calls on a quirky roster of housebound characters she's determined to take care of whether they cooperate or not. She applies this same optimism to her love life, despite the fact that she's been dating for 38 years without locating any husband material. When she runs into her childhood sweetheart, Henry Matthews, a wildlife ranger for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, it looks like she might've found her man. But Phoebe and Henry's chance for romance has to be put on hold while they undertake a desperate search for a young woman who mysteriously vanished from the park during a gathering of world famous biologists and botanists, including a charismatic Frog Whisperer.… (más)

Having spent time in eastern TN/western NC in and around the Smoky Mountains National Park, I loved the setting of this mystery. The mystery itself was OK -- a little predictable but with an interesting motive. I didn't much care for the scenes given from the culprit's perspective; the change in point-of-view was jarring and the information provided unnecessary. It would have been a better story without these bits in my opinion.

Another flaw, but a more tolerable one for me, was the explanations about slime molds. I found the information interesting but a less science-oriented reader may find them boring or overly long. Also, some of the information is given twice (once to Henry and then again to Phoebe) which seemed like padding.… (más)