Blog Tour: Dead Politician Society Review

After the mayor falls down dead in the middle of a speech, a clandestine student society claims credit for his demise. 

Clare Vengel is given her first undercover assignment: to pose as a student and penetrate the society. A streetwise amateur mechanic, Clare finds university a foreign land, and has trouble creating an in with the suspects. She quickly alienates a popular professor and loses the respect of police superiors. 

When another politician is killed, Clare kicks herself into high gear. She forges friendships with students and makes inroads into the secret society. 

As the body count rises, Clare realizes that the murderer she has to unmask is someone she has come to consider a friend. She only hopes that the friend doesn’t unmask her first.

(From Goodreads)

Title: Dead Politician Society: A Clare Vengel Undercover Novel

Publisher: ECW Press

Pages: Hardcover; 325

Source: Received from author for review

First off, Clare rides a motorcycle. That gives her plenty of kudos in my book! I was also attracted by the murder mystery aspect.

As soon as I opened the book to its first page, I was struck by how long it had been since I’d read a mystery novel. To be completely honest I left mystery novels behind in my Nancy Drew days, in favor of more fantasy books. It’s still a mystery (pun intended) to me why this shift occurred, but perhaps it was what I needed at that point in time. Mystery took a back seat and I forgot how amazing it can be to become absorbed in a particularly harrowing sequence of deaths.

That being said, of course you can ascertain that I found myself hooked! Clare Vengel is, in my mind, a much cooler and much more sassy Nancy Drew. She is the undercover cop I wish I was. Whereas Nancy snuck around in turtlenecks and dresses, Clare Vengel rides around on a Triumph motorcycle in leather and designer jeans. Her wit is deliciously acerbic, and she can hold her own with any man that comes her way. In other words, Clare is my kind of girl!

In this first installment of Robin Spano’s series, Clare is asked to pose as a college student to discover who is behind the murders of several politicians. As she navigates this new group of people, she finds herself becoming a little closer to them than she originally intended to get. I must admit that I was extremely impressed with the way the story was told. The chapters alternate between the perspectives of the people Clare finds herself amongst, and the story becomes a giant puzzle. 

I found myself gathering intel that even the detectives didn’t have (one of the  perks of being omniscient) and working to solve the murder myself. Isn’t that the best part of a mystery novel? I guarantee that those who read these books often would have been able to uncover the ending, however I was blown away by it! As hard as I tried, and as eagerly as I read, I wasn’t able to put together who the murderer really was. In fact, I literally gasped out loud at the end.

I’ll stop rambling now and end this review with what I’m sure you’ve already gathered (you sleuth you) from my review above. I adored this book! I am a huge fan of Clare and an even greater fan of her creator Robin Spano. I eagerly look forward to the next installment! I can’t wait to see what Clare has in store for her next, or what lengths she will go to in an effort to solve it.