Most helpful customer reviews
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Decent, May 24 2002
Chained is not my favorite of the Sam Jones novels. This book was again centered on a mystery of sorts and drama (in all forms), but the "kick [backside]" detective girl was just slightly off (and no mantra to the mini skirt - which is a key Jones symbol). It could be that she has a steady man, or that she was written to be less aggressive, but whatever the reason it makes her less of a hero and more of a normal character. I liked Sam as the [bootie] kick action hero type. I also found the "chained" part of the story a bit too dark. Over all a good read - but not the best one.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
best of the series so far, but read the previous ones, April 9 2002
Perhaps the cleverest Sam Jones novel to date. This novel is filled with delicious witticisms ranging from literature to sex. A combination of "chick-lit" (not to be confused with the gum) and mystery genres, it transcends the boundaries of both to become a novel without genre limitations. It is witty, suspenseful and great fun to read. Like most series novels, a good understanding of the history of the characters helps to tip the enjoyment upseveral notches. Sam Jones is a modern female who loves sex with the proper stranger, drugs with anyone and has a hangover most mornings. But as she is a sculptor working in metal mobiles (at least for the moment) she has the luxury of staying in bed till noon. This lack of morning initiative in no way prevents her from finding dead bodies during the balance of the 14 hour day, nor does it prevent her from getting into messes that threaten her death and cause significant bodily injury. If you like 'em tough, you'll love SamThe novel opens with a prologue in which Sam is chained to a pair of handcuffs in a dank cellar. Her head aches and she has no idea how she has come to be in this place. Slowly it dawns on her that she has been kidnapped but she cannot figure out why. Henderson makes the reader work to put all the pieces together, especially as chapters open with little seeming relevance to the end of the preceding chapter - an approach that trusts the reader to pay attention. All is explained eventually, but the reader needs to read closely and trust the novelist. This type of exposition is one of the marks of great literature and it is a pleasure to see genre writers moving toward mainstream literary techniques. Chained introduces us to the world of TV production and animal rights. Much of the novel takes place on the set of a TV production starring Sam's new beau, Hugo. Hugo's co-star, Sarah, has given reporters a field day by drunkenly defending wearing a fur coat. The animal rights groups are furious and she is inundated with threatening letters. When a dead fox is nailed in her trailer dressing room toilet, the threats to her life become more real. Sarah is beautiful and a good actor but is not one of those who has the need to have an affair with her leading man, so Sam's jealousy of women near Hugo remains low. That she feels jealousy at all is a new emotion for her and it scares her a bit... ... So much of the charm of Henderson's novels is the sly placement of literary allusions. For example: "The highly particular smell of damp unwashed armpit penetrating through seismic layers of its own previous dried-off secretions had brought memories flooding back to whatever parts of my brain were still reasonably intact. Not quite Proust's madeleine, but when you were chained to the ceiling of a cellar with no chocolate in sight, you took whatever moments of distraction you could grab." Henderson is an intellectual whose learning lies lightly on her shoulders and gives the reader a smile of recognition without pushing things too far. So the reader gets sex, drugs and murder through a literary sensibility that gives the whole series its particular flavor of the sweet, the bitter and 180 proof.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Mystery With A Healthy Dose of Humour, Mar 27 2002
Sam Jones is a tough, no nonsense, take charge woman, so when she wakes up to find that she is tethered by a chain in a cellar, it doesn't faze her in the slightest. Once she figures out how she got there, she focuses her attention on working on a way to get out.This is an oftentimes light-hearted mystery that revolves around Sam's kidnapping, escape and her attempts to work out who the perpetrators were. Many of the scenes are on the set of a television drama that is in the process of being filmed and is where Sam is working as a stand-in for the leading lady. The characters encountered on set provide many amusing moments as the actors' egos duke it out, trying to maintain their superiority over the hired help. My favourite scene, and one that I can easily relate to, occurs when Sam and her friend, Tom, venture into an Ikea store with a great deal of trepidation. Their fear of venturing of the marked paths and becoming lost forever, and indignation that the store doesn't contain a bar (and their means of remedying the situation) had me in stitches. This is a very enjoyable book that is just right for anyone who prefers their female protagonists to be strong, fearless and capable, yet feminine to the core. It's also ideal for anyone who enjoys their mysteries to be sprinkled with a healthy dose of humour.
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