The Damage Done - Hilary Davidson

I first got word of Hilary Davidson through twitter, where she posts frequently.  I knew that she had written a novel, but there are so many authors on twitter, it is hard to read everyone's work.  Then Bouchercon 2011 hit, and she won the Anthony Award for Best First Novel so I had to read it.

It is nice to read new authors every once in a while, which most recently for me include Dana Haynes and Patrick Lee.  The great thing for me about new writers is the new voice they provide to an established genre.  In this novel, the main character is a female, which is less usual in a crime novel.  Even more unusual, is that she is not a private eye, detective, but a travel journalist.  She then becomes a makeshift  detective when she is called from Spain to come back to New York City to identify her sister's body which has been found in the tub of her apartment.

I'm not going to give anything away, but there are a lot of twists in this novel that aren't really expected, which do not seem contrived at all.  Not to mention the ending, which is totally unexpected!

I'm currently reading Reamde by Neal Stephenson.  It's 1000 pages, and I'm about 1/3 done.  I think I'm still one or two books behind, so I'll try to get caught up.