Setting: Guatemala
Time Period: Modern Day

When I began my journey with the “Around The World In 80 Books” reading challenge, I learned very quickly to appreciate authors who dig into out of the way settings. One of those authors is Jeanette Windle, and her novel, “Betrayed,” is set in the country of Guatemala. When I opened to the first page, I didn’t know this story was going to be an epic journey of two sisters and how Guatemala changed their past and future drastically.

There is so much to say about this novel, I don’t know where to start! First off, I’ll mention that drug trafficking in Central America played a huge part of this story. When Vicki finds her sister, Holly, dead in Guatemala City, she’s determined to find out more about her death. In the chapters to come, the story takes you on a complex journey of finding Holly’s murderer. The only problem is, that’s not all Vicki finds.

The author did a great job of making you wonder how Vicki was going to solve her sister’s murder. There were several places in the book I was convinced she would never find enough evidence to take to the authorities and would have to give up. Then, wham, out of nowhere comes a new lead, and the story goes on with a new twist. Had a good ending too!

I felt that the book was well written, but it was very deep and used a lot of technical terms. I’m not used to reading a lot of International Security type books, so all the police, military, Embassy stuff didn’t click all the time. Though I could figure most of it out. The plot had many moving parts – and forigen names to keep straight! If you enjoy novels with point of view from a lot of characters, you would probably enjoy “Betrayed.”

Conclusion: There were parts about this story that I enjoyed and then there were parts that bothered me. As someone who only has one sister, I had a hard time with Holly being murdered and Vicki left behind to figure it out. It seemed so sad! (Guess that’s why I’m more of a romance gal.) On the other hand, I loved how the author brought people back into Vicki’s life that her parents knew before they died. It gave the book a “coming full circle” feel, and I thought it was a nice touch.