I don’t usually post book reviews here, but I couldn’t help myself with this one!

I just finished reading Until It’s Over by Dorothy van Soest, and what a delight. One of the joys of reading a book series is seeing what adventures your old friends are up to, and I will say, Sylvia Jenson, the protagonist in Dorothy van Soest’s novels, never disappoints.

In Until It’s Over, Sylvia, now feeling her age, and her longtime friend JB Harrell attend a rally organized by Peter Minter, an Ojibwe elder, protesting Midwest Mining Company’s uranium mining on Indian lands. Sylvia expects Peter to be the primary speaker at the rally. Instead, Peter introduces Anthony Jordane, who is running for the US Senate. Jordane pledges to make the prohibition of uranium mining a key issue in his campaign platform and a primary focus of his work when he is elected to the Senate. Sylvia reacts to Jordane, shouting, “Oh my God! What the hell is he doing here?” As Jordane speaks, Sylvia cries out, “NO! Liar! Bastard! No! NO! NO!” And she collapses in cardiac arrest.

How it that for a gripping first 10 pages!

The novel unfolds with JB working to understand Sylvia’s virulence towards Jordane, interwoven with flashbacks of Sylvia’s youth when she knew Jordane in high school. If you have been following the series (and if you haven’t been, you should! Each novel is a delight in its own right), the flashbacks reveal the birth of some demons that haunt Sylvia. The novel also shows Sylvia at her investigative best, as she works to reveal the truth about Anthony Jordane.

There will be no spoilers here, so I will not say more than Dorothy van Soest has crafted an exquisitely elegant, pitch perfect conclusion. This is the work of an author at the top of her craft.

I highly recommend this novel to you! And I urge you to plan your time wisely as to when you will begin reading it, because you will not want to put it down.