Jennifer Macaire's history of writing children's and young adult novels has been a first-class apprenticeship which graduates to this latest cross-genre spicy science fiction romantic suspense intended for an adult audience. Virtual Murder is a perfect example of the type of cross-genre amalgamation that would make ordinary publishers scratch their heads and wonder where to market it. In romance? In science fiction? In suspense? In mysteries? As hard as such a book might be to shelve at your local bookstore, such a book easily finds its audience among e-book readers.

Virtual Murder is set in a future vision of earth where virtual reality has been engineered to the ninth degree. The visionary Andrea Girts pioneers a travel company called Virtual Tours, which provides a two-day virtual reality trip to its clients. Something goes wrong on one "trip" and one of the tour's employee's dies.

But this is just the backdrop. Macaire's book has figments, virtuals, net police, espionage, biological engineering, and mutants endowed with powers that verge on the magical. The heart of the book is the mutant Monkey, one of the most powerful and versatile of the siblings who walk the line between the virtual reality and the actual reality. Of course there is a whole cast of well-developed characters (including several romances) who move in and out of the beautifully described inner and outer cosmos.

The sights and smells of the virtual reality trips are so evocatively depicted that the trips feel as real as the chair you're sitting in right now. We readers get to share in these virtual reality tours (and only for the cost of reading the book); but the story itself goes far beyond mere description. Suffice it to say that you too will fall in love with Monkey (in both his old world and his new one) and hope to see him again in future books. This book hooked me on page one and I stayed hooked straight through to the end. An excellent read, yet one, which left me wanting more of Monkey and Macaire's virtual world.

Reviewed By Maîtresse
© Dec 2004