Downstream
Witherston Murder Mysteries, Book 1
By Betty Jean Craige
ISBN# 9781626942004
Brought to you by OBS reviewer Jerjen
Francis Hearty Withers is an one hundred year old billionaire who lives in a town named after his family. At a celebration in his honor, he announces the will that he has written and explains where the money will go. One billion dollars will go to the town and one billion dollars will go to the four thousand town’s residents. He has bequeathed the remainder of his estate to BioSenecta, a pharmaceutical company developing a drug that extends peoples lives. The money will allow the company to build a plant in Witherston and continue production of the drug. Withers expects the town residents to be happy and thankful for his generosity. The reality is that there are many that protest during his speech and do not want his money or the pharmaceutical company in their town. He becomes so enraged that he vows to change his will and no residents will receive a dime of his money. He states that he will leave his entire estate to BioSenecta. Before he has a chance to actually change his will, he is found dead. Now it has to be determined if he died of natural causes or because of foul play.
Mev Arroyo is a detective for the police department and she is given the case to investigate. When she begins to look into the death, she realizes there are many suspects to consider. Money is a big motive for murder and there are four thousand suspects that would lose a considerable amount of money if Withers changed his will. This will not be an easy case to solve. And Mev has other things on her mind besides the case she is investigating. She has just found out that she may have a serious medical problem to deal with.
The story is written from different viewpoints: from the killer, from the person telling the story, and from newspaper articles on their web site. In my opinion, this prevented the book from flowing smoothly. I felt it was choppy at times and seemed a little helter-skelter. Other readers may enjoy getting all the different perspectives but for me it was too distracting.
The characters are well developed, well rounded and three dimensional. I really enjoyed reading about Mev and her family. I got to know her husband and sons well and reading how she handled her medical problems made her seem more human. I thought the author did a great job with character development. I think I enjoyed reading about her as much as I did trying to solve the mystery.
The preface of the book starts off with a bang and the suspense continues to build after Withers dies. There are many twists and turns and many suspects to consider while trying to solve the mystery. I thought I had it figured out a few times but I was wrong. But that is alright because I like when the author is able to keep me guessing.
There are some issues addressed in the book that are pertinent to society today. Issues such as life prolonging drugs, pollution from pharmaceutical companies and forest clearing are discussed. The author seems very knowledgable about these topics and she wanted to share her opinion. The book was not preachy and at times these topics were addressed with humor, which I enjoyed. I felt like the author just wanted to bring these issues to the readers attention and to get the reader thinking about these things. And I think she did this very well.
I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a well written mystery. I think this book could be read by both young adults and older adults. Since this is book one in the series there should be more books to follow.
