From the Vaults: Review: The Serpent's Daughter, Suzanne Arruda

The Serpent's Daughter (Jade del Cameron #3)

Suzanne Arruda

Piatkus, 2011 (2008)

Goodreads

Joining her mother for a holiday in the ancient port city of Tangier, American adventuress Jade del Cameron expects their trip will be far less dangerous than her safaris in East Africa. But soon after their introduction to a group of European tourists, Dona del Cameron goes missing-victim of an apparent kidnapping-and, shockingly, the French authorities seek to arrest Jade for the murder of a man whose body she discovered in a series of ancient tunnels. Now, Jade must call upon her friends to find her mother and expose the true villains, who have every intention of bringing about her own destruction...

I picked this book up originally anticipating a light, quick read. This was my first Jade del Cameron book, one which finds Jade in Morocco, attempting to solve her mother's kidnapping and becoming embroiled in a smuggling plot, murder, and the supernatural traditions of an ancient tribe along the way.

Jade's character is strong and entertaining, and kept me reading even as the plot seemed to slip away in some places. The kidnapping plot and the parallel mystery involving the amulet involved the same adversary, and yet the link between the two at times seemed convoluted, with perhaps one too many coincidences or leaps of faith. While Jade and her mother do discuss the 'how' and 'why' briefly at the end of the book, I was hoping for a broader, Poirot-style denouement at the end.

That said, I'd be interested to read the two previous del Cameron books, and as a light mystery this was enjoyable.

Original Goodreads rating: 3/5 stars

Book source: Bought.

From the Vaults is an attempt to resurrect those book reviews I wrote and published on Goodreads before I started Bibliotekit. They tend to be quite short, but I hope they might highlight some good books I picked up in the last couple of years!