Book #22: Methods of Madness (Whitney Book 4)

Title: Methods of Madness
Author: Stephanie Black

Methods of Madness is what I thought most of the Whitney books would be: books by Mormons about the Mormon experience. None of the first three books had LDS characters or would have been overtly recognizable as a book about Mormons, and that surprised me a little bit.

Anyway, in Methods of Madness, first-grade teacher Emily Ramsey is the unluckiest girl alive. Three years ago, at her combination bridal shower/birthday party, her older sister Tricia got killed by a hit-and-run driver while trying to tie balloons to a lamppost. That same night, Emily's fiance Ryan disappeared, never to be seen again. It's taken some time, but Emily managed to pull through. She just agreed to marry Zach, a math teacher, but as soon as she says "yes," strange things start to happen: Zach's old girlfriend decides she will stop at nothing to get him back, a stalker makes Emily wonder if she's losing her mind, and more people turn up dead.

As far as the mystery goes, I guess the story itself is okay. I didn't guess who the murderer was, and there's quite a bit of suspense. But there were also some significant problems with the book. First of all, I just didn't care about the characters, especially Emily and Zach, who were so flat and Molly Mormon that I wanted them to bust out and do something interesting. Instead, they seemed like stereotypes of what singles wards are full of. A couple of days later, the only thing I remember about Zach is that he was unusually skinny, and the only thing I remember about Emily is that she had an unnatural affection for Welch's grape juice. Some of the secondary characters were more interesting (most memorably Emily's mom, who cooked all the time-- is that also a stereotype?). The other problem was that the story was mostly told from Emily's perspective (third-person omniscient, but we hung with Emily most of the time), which seems weird for a mystery. It's fairly uncommon for the story to be told from the point of view of the victim, and I don't think it really worked here.

Just some other picky things: is anyone ever unattractive in an LDS book? Are our singles wards full of skinny auburn-haired hotties? Not in my experience, but that's what the books I've read so far seem to think. Everyone is beautiful and we know that because the authors tell us. I want some normal protagonists who don't fall into sacrament meeting from the pages of sacrament meetings.

Finally, a spoiler: the villains in the book are the ones who are either not LDS or not following traditional LDS roles. The main good Mormon characters come out of things squeaky-clean, as per usual. Not sure how I feel about that.