Recent Reads {Gold Fever - A Klondike Mystery}

Gold Fever - A Klondike Mystery by Vicki Delany - Somehow I missed the fact that this book was a sequel to another until I was several chapters into it.  I wonder if having read the first would have improved my experience with it?  I didn't sense that there were 'missing pieces' to the story that I would have known had I read the first book, Gold Digger, so I continued on.  I did like the characters and sense of atmosphere - the story is set in Dawson during the gold rush - and the identity and motive of the killer are not obvious until near the very end, so in that sense I liked this book very well.  However, I found that I wasn't sure which of the threads of the story were most important - the murder mystery? the potential romances? the son's relationships and ambitions? the mother's relationships and interactions?  All had some appeal and were intertwined in various ways, but I sometimes felt as if I was trying to listen in on too many different conversations at once.  At least the switches from first person narrative (when Fiona tells her story) to third person were obvious so I didn't have to wonder whose account I was reading.  The ending, while it tidies up the murder mystery, remains very open-ended, leading me to suspect a third in the series must be planned.  No news on the author's website as to when that may be coming out, and this book was only released in April 2010, so it may be a little while.  Although I don't give this book a ringing endorsement, I didn't dislike it either, so I may try to read Gold Digger at some point, and I probably will keep an eye out for whatever may follow Gold Fever, just to see what happens to Fiona and the rest of the characters in Dawson next.