Editor’s Note: Maine Bound is a periodic column featuring new books that are either by authors, set in the Pine Tree State or have other local ties.

CHAT ROOM, by Linda Hall, 2003, Multnomah Publishers, Sisters, Ore., 314 pages, paperback, $11.99

Private eye Teri Blake-Addison has enough on her plate – building a new house, moving her office out of downtown Bangor, stepping out of the shadow cast by her husband’s dead wife.

She doesn’t need clients, but the former Maine State Police detective can’t resist the connection between the missing woman her client wants her to find and the King James Murders, her biggest case as a cop. So over lunch in Governor’s Restaurant, Blake-Addison agrees to look for Kim Shock, whose brother Barry is believed responsible for the brutal murders a few years earlier.

“Chat Room” is the second in a new detective series by New Brunswick writer Linda Hall. She is labeled a Christian writer because her characters go to church and talk about their faith, but Hall writes novels where the mysteries are solved by good, solid detective work rather than divine revelations.

Blake-Addison’s search for Kim Shock uncovers more than just lingering questions about the King James Murders. It delves into the prolific use of the Internet by churches and ministers, some of whom are not legitimate.

Hall is a master of character and dialogue. She knows Blake-Addison inside and out and paints a complex portrait of a woman whose life is full of contradictions. What is refreshing about the character is that she knows herself almost as well.

The author is not as good at plotting. The end of “Chat Room” seems rushed and unsatisfactory. Periodically, Hall lets the perpetrator interrupt the story, which is usually tightly focused on the detective and her client. This literary device is irritating, and letting the reader know the man makes him seem less threatening and evil. It would be more effective if readers discovered his secrets along with the detective.

The Blake-Addison series is set in the Bangor area and includes detailed scenes in the old Bagel Shop and an Orono coffee shop very like the store Ampersand. The detective often works on her laptop computer in these restaurants and the author’s descriptions of them are perfect.

There are a few flaws in Hall’s plotting devices, but her characters, especially Blake-Addison, are what make the series compelling. – By Judy Harrison

I NEVER WOKE UP ‘TIL I WAS FORTY, by Martha Knight Foster, 2003, Trafford Publishing, Victoria, B.C., 194 pages, paperback, $14.59.

Annie Bloom just turned 40 and is in the midst of a mid-life crisis. She begins a search for her “true self” that unfolds in the pages of her journal.

This entry, written on her birthday, asks, “Is there more to me than Good Mother, Good Daughter, and Good Wife?” Seven months and 190 some odd pages later, Annie Bloom concludes that “life’s easier when you decide that you can’t be all things to all people … and still be yourself.”

The stuff in between recounts Annie Bloom’s journey of self-discovery and a few of the day-to-day details of her life. It also details her decision to be a writer, including an entry on how to dress for the role.

How closely the character’s life matches the one lived by author Foster, a freelance writer who lived in the Bangor area, is not clear. Neither is the book’s time frame. “I Never Woke Up ‘Til I was Forty” reads like it was written 30 years ago by a housewife rocked by the feminist movement.

Annie Bloom is married to a real-estate agent named Charlie and spices up the copy for his ads. She has a 5-year-old son from her first marriage and a rocky relationship with her ex. She also has way too much time on her hands.

Foster’s goal in writing the book as a diary is as murky as are the details of her character’s life. If it is a self-help book for other women facing 40, it leaves out entire groups of women from single working mothers to driven career women trying to have it all.

The keeper of this diary always seems to be aware that she is writing to be read. Annie Bloom’s diary entries chronicle what she does but not who she is. The sense of intimacy or the invasion of an individual’s privacy that is implicit with reading a diary is missing from this book.

Foster is not a novelist, and she desperately needs a good editor. Her book is an argument against the proliferation of self-publishing firms such as Trafford.

Bloom’s journey is so ordinary and un-unique that the book is an absolute bore. None of its characters are engaging or memorable, and Foster’s writing style reads like a very long laundry list without the stream of consciousness that is typical of real diaries. In the end, that is its greatest flaw. – By Judy Harrison

Judy Harrison is a staff writer at the Bangor Daily News. She can be reached at jharrison@bangordailynews.net.