In "The Big Keep" Melisa Olsen moves away from vampires,witches and werewolves to write a story about an ex-Chicgao cop turned Private Detective.

I knew from the first chapter, "Little Sticks of Destiny", that I would enjoy this book. The little sticks are pregnancy testing kits and the novel starts with Lena Dane staring at the recently peed-on stick in her hand that declares that it is her destiny is to become a mother in a few month's time. While she's still struggling to come up with a reaction to this information, she meets a potential new client: a teenage boy in search of his father. She takes on the case partly out of sympathy for the boy and partly to distract herself from her newly declared destiny.

I loved the originality of the opening. I can't remember ever having read a story opening with a PI finding she's pregnant. I loved the humour in the writing and in the dialogue, the fact that the characters are both real and likeable, the easy to read, natural writing style and the strong orientation towards relationships over plot.

The book more than lived up to my expectations.It is a book about what it means to be in a family. The characters are richly drawn and the relationships between them seem authentic. Lena Dane is a good PI but she isn't superhuman. She isn't even setting out to be a hero. Yet she is strong and brave and smart and has good taste in comics. I could believe in her as a cop. I could also see why she might doubt her own ability to be a mother. Olson has come up with a great female lead here: likeable, credible and still very much an individual with strengths and flaws to be explored.

Lena's father runs a comic book store and the book is filled with references to all kinds of comics and movies. As usual with Melissa Olson there's a well described dog character, which I take as a plus. The relationships between Lena and her sister and Lena and her husband are complicated and sometimes tense but the love she has for each of them is clear.

The plot is a good one. Olsen manages to broaden a simple missing person case into something much bigger and more dangerous without asking me to suspend disbelief and without making Lena into a passionate avenger who is too stubborn to stay out of harm's way. The twist and turns in the plot kept me guessing.

The best thing about the book is characters in it. That's a rare thing in a PI series. I hope Melissa Olsen can pull herself away from her urban fantasies (much as I love them) long enough to produce more Lena Dane novels.

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This is a very interesting take on the detective novel. As readers, we are accustomed to detectives who have personal problems, personal demons they struggle with: alcoholism, regret over a failure, bad love lives, et cetera, et cetera. But after reading a whole lotta mysteries, I have to say that a private detective struggling with an unexpected pregnancy is a totally new one on me.

Olson's characters are very well drawn and very real. There are several I wish we'd gotten to understand better, like Lena's spouse Toby and her sister Rory. But she really made me care about what was happening to the people in the book.

The denouement of the book was the only thing I didn't like. No spoilers! but I thought it felt rushed, and after all of Lena's careful analysis, to have the bad guy's identity suddenly come in a flash felt like cheating.

I really hope the author writes another. ( )

Lena Dane is a private investigator, who finds out she’s pregnant, right around the same time she agrees to take on a case from a 14 year old boy looking for his biological father. It’s not a dangerous case, so there is no reason she shouldn’t take it. Right?

I really liked this book, but action wise it has a bit of a slow start, but it picks up about half-way through, enough so that I didn’t want to put it down. I’ve read the author’s Scarlett Bernard series, which has a paranormal aspect, and really enjoyed those books, which is what made me pick this one up. The writing is just as good and definitely worth reading.

As Lena gets further into the case of Nate’s missing father, she realizes there is more to this case than either of them thought. It isn’t just a simple case of finding Nate’s missing father. While investigating, she ruffles a few feathers, and puts herself and her unborn baby in danger as she tries to piece the puzzle together.

It was refreshing to read a book where the lead character is already in a relationship with the love of her life. There is no gushing, or agonizing triangle stuff. Of course they have their moments where things aren’t going so well, and there is a little bit of drama, but the story isn’t centered around the relationship.

The relationship dynamic is really between Lena and Nate, her 14 year old client. Nate’s mother died years ago and his step-father is dying of cancer. So Lena takes him under her wing and kind of becomes like an older sister. She wants to find his father desperately. If she doesn’t he’ll probably be put into foster care, and she can’t bear to see that happen. Which is why she doesn’t give up the case, even when it’s not safe anymore and even when her husband asks her to drop it.

While trying to solve the case, Lena goes through a lot of self doubt regarding the pregnancy. Would she have to change who she is? Get a different job? Or be a stay home mom? She spends a lot of time in denial about the pregnancy. Not that she doesn’t want a baby eventually, but the anxiety and inadequacy a woman feels when she finds out she’s going to be bringing a child into this world is legitimate. Why would she want to bring a child, a child she knows she can’t keep 100% safe, into this world? Especially given her career choice, which she is not ready to give up.

The book didn’t end the way I expected as far as the killer was concerned, which is good since I like a surprise.

I definitely recommend it and I hope there will be more books in the Lena Dane series. ( )