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Alison Bergeron is a professor at a local Catholic college in Dobbs Ferry, New York. This is basic information that doesn't have much to do with the mystery in QUICK STUDY, but it does tell you a little bit about Alison. For reasons that also explain a bit about Alison, and are back-story, Alison is working on a regular basis at a local soup kitchen, serving dinner. She's also dating the prerequisite cop, who doesn't seem to understand that all the other men traipsing in and out of her life are really totally unimportant to her. Alison also has the required girl-pal, who is far sexier than Alison and loves Alison in spite of everything. Pretty standard fare, so far. Alison hires two of the people from the soup kitchen to paint a room in her house. They are related, although Alison isn't quite sure how, as she speaks as much Spanish as they do English. One of the two men disappears, and the family asks Alison to help find him. When Alison asks Detective Bobby Crawford (the boyfriend) to help, he already knows where José is - his body was hauled out of the river a day or two before. As Alison investigates José's death, Crawford repeatedly warns her about getting involved in a police investigation. She, of course, does not listen. Complications ensue, most of which can be predicted by any reader with a grain of sense. She continues to bring men into her life that Bobby doesn't like; see previous sentence. The FBI gets involved and Alison continues to poke around. Again, complications. I know that the tone of this review would indicate that I didn't particularly enjoy QUICK STUDY. In spite of all the predictability and stock characters - this was a fun read. Yes, I wanted to smack Alison upside the head and tell her to THINK just one time before she did one more idiotic thing. No, I didn't see where the plot was going. The setting was fine for the story; I was interested because I have a relative who lives in Dobbs Ferry, so I have some kind of feel for the area, and Barbieri's take on it matched mine. I won't run out and track down the first two books in the series, but I certainly wouldn't mind reading another one if it should cross my path. I would, however, like to see Alison get just a little farther out of too-stupid-to-live territory.
Reviewed by P.J. Coldren, November 2009
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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