Hand of Fate is the second installment by author Lis Wiehl chronicling the lives of three friends linked by their connections to law enforcement as they solve the murder of controversial radio talk show host, Jim Fate. FBI Special Agent Nicole Hedges, Federal Prosecutor Allison Pierce, and crime reporter Cassidy Shaw are the Triple Threat Club; friends who share a passion for seeing justice done. When Fate receives death threats, he calls on Cassidy to enlist the aid of Nicole and Allison to help investigate the threats. As fate would have it, their help came too late. With Fate murdered by an unknown poisonous gas, it falls on these three women to try and make sense of the murder and discover, in the sea of suspects, how close the killer really is. While trying to determine if the murder was committed by one of the hundreds of disgruntled listeners or someone much closer to Fate, each of the Triple Threat members also tackle issues such as domestic violence, illegal immigration, drug addiction and rape.
While I enjoyed Wiehl’s first novel in the Triple Threat series, Face of Betrayal, I cannot say the same about Hand of Fate. Hand of Fate was painstakingly slow and filled with far too many sub-plots. Through Wiehl’s excess in scene description of the chaos in downtown Portland surrounding Fate’s murder and sub-plots that detracted from the central story line, I found myself quickly losing interest in the novel. Additionally, the character development of the three main women began to feel a little forced, as though Wiehl was trying to address as many issues facing women today as possible.
I am a fan of multiple story lines and plot twists, however I felt the writing was much better in Wiehl’s first novel. I found Hand of Fate rather predictable and was rather irritated by the obvious conclusion. Perhaps the ladies were too blinded by the onslaught of personal issues consuming each of them. Also, having read the first novel, I found that it is completely redundant for those who have read Face of Betrayal. While trying to make Hand of Fate stand on it’s own, the relatively verbatim descriptions throughout the book left me with déjà vu and wanting to skip ahead.
Overall, Hand of Fate was a disappointment. Had this book been a bit more focused with fewer sub-plots and issues for the characters to overcome, it may have kept my interest.
Thank you to Thomas Nelson Publishers for the complimentary copy of Hand of Fate (A Triple Threat Novel).
1 comment:
It's DONE! :)
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