In Fields’ Guide to Abduction by Julie Mulhern, after having wakened up in a strange room to find herself in bed with her ex-boyfriend, who has died of a drug overdose, Poppy Fields goes to Cabo, Mexico to get away from her memories of Jake. As the daughter of an A- list movie star, Poppy has been offered a villa at a 5- star resort in exchange for a 30- minute photo op at the resort’s opening. While there, a woman introduces herself to Poppy as the co- star on the first show Poppy’s mother starred in. So when Irene Vargas’s granddaughter, famous Mexican actress Marta Vargas, pounds on Poppy’s door in the middle of the night, showing signs of having been beaten, Poppy lets Marta in. However, the next morning, Poppy finds Marta lying dead of another drug overdose, and soon the responding detective gets a call that Marta’s grandparents were attacked the night before, with her grandfather now dead and her grandmother barely clinging to life.
The bad guys seem to think that Marta gave something to Poppy because someone attacks Poppy that night, demanding to know where “it” is. After managing to escape her captor that night, Poppy ends up the hostage of the Sinaloan cartel in their fight against the Zeta cartel. Using her wits, she must survive as a prisoner and fight for her own freedom.
Fields’ Guide to Abduction was not the light- hearted romp that I initially expected it to be from the book’s description. It has much darker undertones to it despite the humorous scenes, and the book contains a plethora of violent deaths, some of which are more descriptive than others. I did especially enjoy the scene when the Sinaloa cartel members become terrified, shouting that Consuela has gotten loose. Only after venturing into the room does Poppy discover that Consuela is a “killer chihuahua.” Despite the darker moments, in particular the themes related to the drug trade, the book was very enjoyable and made me appreciate the growth in Poppy as she learns to fight for herself.
I also found myself unable to connect to the frequent references of high-end fashion scattered throughout the book. Not knowing much about expensive brands, I couldn’t picture the clothing or bags of the characters as they used such items, and this affected my ability to bond with the book. The talk throughout of the big names in fashion detracted from the book for me and made the characters feel very shallow to me as they immerse themselves in these possessions.
Cathy Barnett performs the audio edition of this book, with a voice that suits the first person narration of the character of Poppy. I felt a little conflicted about some of her use of Spanish in the narration because while Barnett uses Spanish accents for the Mexican characters, sometimes (but not always), she mangles the pronunciation of Spanish words. Poppy makes it clear that she can’t speak any Spanish and pronounces the few Spanish words she does speak with a terrible accent. So I can see that as the narrator of the book, she might not get everything accurate when trying to repeat the speech of native Spanish speakers. However, it feels jarring to hear such words mispronounced while they contain a decent Spanish accent. Further, I find it doubtful that Poppy would even remember some of the Spanish- language speech she recounts. Other than this issue, I was pleased with the performance of Barnett and felt that overall, she did a good job.
Fields’ Guide to Abduction was in general a fun book that I mostly enjoyed listening to. I did find it darker than I would have preferred, but for the most part, I liked the book. I give it four stars.
Disclaimer: I received this book for free for review purposes, but that had no influence on the content of my review.
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