Sandra C. Lopez's Blog, page 257

Review: MURDER IS CHARTERED by Diane Weiner

Susan is a retired school teacher spending her time helping out at her friend’s 4thgrade class. After a particularly long night, she drives home completely exhausted and hadn’t realized that she hit someone on the road. Did she fall asleep at the wheel? Had she killed a woman?


Panicked, she calls her detective daughter, Lynette, for help. Will Susan be accused of killing the assistant principal at her school? Lynnette doesn’t want Susan to confess to anything until she looks into this more. Something about the victim wandering in a deserted mountain road at night seemed suspicious. I mean, who does that? Either way, there was a mystery to solve.


A quick read, although the story had a few too many characters to keep track. The politics concerning livestock and GMO were not too compelling and complicated it. Overall, his was an okay read.


My rating: 3 stars

Review: VEGAS STRIPPED by Stephanie Caffrey (Book 2)

A lounge singer wants to know why he was passed up for a job and Raven must find out. The guy she has to follow could be part of an illegal underage prostitution ring. In Las Vegas? Shocker.


Raven’s a hoot pretending to be a lesbian to get out of a dinner date. The covert operations are a little amusing. But, still, the overall investigation was pretty hum-drum. Overall, the whole thing wasn’t easy to get into.


My rating: 3 stars

Review: DIVA LAS VEGAS by Stephanie Caffrey (Book 1)

Raven McShane is a Vegas stripper with a P.I. business. Of course, “business” is a loose term as one would need to generate revenue to call it that. But then an old comrade seeks her out to help prove her late husband’s murder.


In doing so, Raven uses her seductive and womanly wiles to get the info she needs. Could you really come up with evidence 3 years later? There was definitely a lot of legal research and lawyer talk (I think she even went to law school for a while,) which slowed down the plot, I think. I didn’t even understand some of it. But I did like that Raven was a strong, fearless woman. She was smart and a smart-aleck. However, the case was too complex for me.


My rating: 3 stars

Review: HIDDEN IN THE DARK by RaShell Lashbrook

Graphic Image designed by Sandra Lopez

After enduring a lifetime of abuse at the hands of the man that vowed to cherish her, Genny Carter knows only the role of the victim. More focused on avoiding punishment than the wellbeing of her three daughters, she ignored the terror inflicted on them by their father during their childhood. She kept his secrets. Now, in her sixties, Genny has had enough. She needs her daughters to help her escape. Can she count on them?

Lilly has tried for decades since leaving that little Texas farmhouse to erase the unspeakable things that were done to her. After snagging a wealthy man, she reinvents herself into a polished member of San Antonio’s old-money society. Can she keep up this façade, or will the secrets she hides cause her to lose everything?

Always Daddy’s favorite, thirty-five-year-old Randi tries to bury her shame in a mountain of sex and drugs. Estranged from her parents for nearly ten years, the news of Mother’s leaving forces her to face old wounds. Will she survive?

Much younger than her sisters, Raine was left to deal with Daddy’s horrific abuse after the others left. Shanti, free of a conscience, was conjured to help protect little Raine by whatever means necessary. Raine’s mother and father are back in the picture, and Shanti is on a rampage.

Every family has secrets. Some are worth dying for.


Available on Amazon




My review: Genny was a woman in her 60’s married to the same mean, old, abusive drunk. After putting up with Randall for so long, she didn’t have to wonder why her daughters didn’t come around anymore.
Raine was stuck in a rut and hated her job, especially working for her fat slob of a boss.
Lillian was a happily married mother of two. She seemed to have had the perfect life.
Randi was a smoking, selfish lout that hadn’t spoken to her mother in years and never brought up the special relationship she had her father.
The news of the girl’s mother finally leaving their father stirs an unsettlement as painful memories emerge from the dark recess and surface to their minds. Story eloquently relives memories of the family’s murky past. But secrets were not just in the past; they were also playing part in the present as well. Raine was living a double life as her alter ego, Serenity, a sexually starved vixen; and soon a personality from the past takes over. And Lillian was having an affair. Could she be pregnant with another man’s child?
Each character had a different view and story that all melded together into one climactic and scintillating tale. Together, they unveil the secrets hidden in the dark.
“The unknown was a monster in the dark that threatened to swallow [you] whole.” (127)
The secrets would be enough to die and kill for.
Well-crafted and compelling! It makes you want to see it ‘til the end.
My rating: 4 stars

Review: BOTTOMLESS CUPS by Joel Bresler

Over the course of seven decades, Teddy and Ray have endured many trials but still remained friends. Over coffee, the two engage in past times and pleasant conversation. Like any pair of old men, they bicker and jabber, and, at times, go off on tirades that almost seem meaningless.
The writing was good. It was interesting how important historical events paralleled into their young lives. Story kind of takes the reader into a clever montage of “those were the days” parodies. At times, they can be aimless wanderings with no real direction. Reliving boys’ coming-of-age years was, by far, the most amusing.
My rating: 3 stars

Review: SHATTERED MEMORIES: ADDICTED by R.A. Merrill

This story is an honest and vivid portrayal of addiction. It all started with his birth, when drugs were literally in his DNA—a result from his own mother’s drug use. The narrative is a simple compilation of a boy’s growth, family, and overall struggles with mental dysfunction and drug use. Each chapter was like a short vignette to a part of the character’s life. He discusses his grandparents, his uncles, his aunts, and so forth. The whole thing is literally a walk down memory lane from Merrill’s account.
There was some formatting issues that could’ve easily been fixed, but it doesn’t dissuade from the candidness of the story, which is infused by pride, remorse, and sensitivity by the character.
A pretty good memoir.
My rating: 4 stars

Review: CRIME BEAT GIRL by Geri L. Dreiling

Graphic Image designed by Sandra Lopez

A girl is dead. A boy is locked up. Can Debbie Bradley discover the truth before more lives are lost...maybe even her own?

A series of deadly shootings. An outbreak of stolen cars. When journalist Debbie Bradley returns home to St. Louis, the summer crime wave has started. And she's in the center: A witness, a reporter, a target.

Debbie's reasons for leaving behind her promising career in Washington D.C. were complicated. Her mother, a prominent lawyer, was diagnosed with cancer. Her engagement was cooling. When she got offered a job in St. Louis that she hadn't been looking for, Debbie recognized an opportunity. Or an escape.

But she didn't expect to come home and see a girl die. Debbie never planned to investigate a boy behind bars. And she didn't anticipate colliding with hostile cops and wary politicians.As her work gains attention, Debbie gathers enemies. Will her assignment to cover the St. Louis crime beat be her last?

Available on Amazon




Excerpt
Debbie noticed that her phone had gone quiet. Either she was going in the right direction or her app had crashed. Again. She took one hand off the steering wheel and adjusted her glasses as she peered at the small screen. She put the phone back down and tucked a strand of her thick, wavy hair the color of a roasted chestnut shell back into her tight ponytail. Maybe it's time to turn back, she thought. But a retreat wouldn't get her to the Teen Alliance interview. She needed to focus on the assignment. It was easy enough--interviewing the executive director of a nonprofit. Teen Alliance was an organization trying to give kids from families with little means healthy ways to spend their free time. It would be a puff piece, and although light, fluffy, positive stories weren't really her strength, Sam thought it would be a way for Debbie to get into the groove of magazine reporting, as well as help her grow her contact list of local movers and shakers.The repeated blare of a car horn shook Debbie out of her reverie.She turned her head toward the sound that pierced the eerie quiet. It was coming from a blue, rust-pocked pickup truck driven by a silver-haired man. The truck was headed toward her, traveling in its lane, and yet the driver was pointing at Debbie and then pointing at his rearview mirror. Instinctively, Debbie looked into her own rearview. That's when she spotted a red Audi convertible weaving wildly in and out of her lane--and the truck's lane--and was not slowing down. Debbie lurched her steering wheel abruptly to the right. The oncoming truck veered in the opposite direction, leaving as much room as possible for the erratic luxury car barreling down the roadway and any driver unfortunate enough to be sharing the space. The out-of-control Audi swerved toward the truck, then sharply careened the opposite way, its front aimed at Debbie's car. Debbie's heart lurched into her throat. The Audi's tires squealed. The nose of the Audi turned sharply once again and clipped the back end of the truck before jumping the curb.Screams rang out. A crowd of teens who had been gathered outside a tiny market--the sort that sells junk food, liquor, and lottery tickets in places where chain grocery stores refuse to operate--was in the path of the Audi that was no longer being guided by its driver.Those on the edges of the group scattered like birds after the loud boom of a gunshot, darting out of the car's path. Those who were in the center, the unlucky ones, flew into the air when the car connected with human flesh. Debbie slammed on her brakes, threw her car into park, and grabbed her phone to dial 911. The Audi finally came to a stop after the front end and hood smashed through the display window of the market. Customers still clutching red plastic baskets and a worker wearing a green apron stumbled out the front door, dazed and confused.Debbie jumped out of her car. There were people broken and bleeding on the ground. Some wailed. One teen who had been tossed in the air and then left crumpled in a heap on the earth looked at Debbie with a vacant gaze, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth.As Debbie ran toward the Audi, rage filled her chest. She flung open the car's door with all the strength that anger fuels. The driver, slumped over a deployed airbag, moaned. His feet barely reached the pedals, and his tear-streaked cheeks were round with the baby fat he hadn't lost. He was just a child.
***


My review: Debbie Bradley was a reporter looking to make a difference and seek justice. After a great gig in DC, she was back in her hometown working the small press. On her way to an interview, she becomes a witness and participant of a car accident, which led to her editor giving Debbie the new role of tracking the crime in St. Louis and calling it “Crime Beat Girl.”
The reader soon dives deep into an array of judiciaries, politics, protocols, and data. Debbie certainly has a nose for sniffing out a good story and getting to the bottom of things. As she looks more into the young boy who was being charged for the car wreck, one statement struck her: This was no accident. What really happened then? “Who were the good guys and who were the bad guys?”
Debbie has a knack for showing up at every crime scene with her notebook, camera phone, and a truck load of questions. She was the Crime Beat Girl in action. It’s an interesting gig that hooks the reader, keeping pace as she follows several crimes in the story. She was “working on nothing and everything,” and, with the help of her lawyer mother, she can dig further into the truths. I enjoyed the loving squabbles between mother and daughter—2 stubborn, smart, and fiercely independent women. The court scenes can be a little dry and tedious, but, overall, this was an interesting ride along a plucky reporter.
My rating: 3 stars

Review: MISSING by Peter G. Pollak

Cynthia Anderson, college girl: Missing
After quitting the FBI, Melanie started her own detective agency. The girl’s parents want to hire her to find their daughter. Finally, a case!
Why would Cynthia not answer her cell phone? There’d be no reason for a young girl not to…unless…
The progress was diplomatic and inquisitive with some lag and sentence infractions. Evidently, this missing case might’ve had something to do with racial protest. Complexity overlays the mystery as Melanie digs deeper into campus policies, political protests, and ethnic historical data. It started off interesting, but then it slowed down.
Overall, it’s an okay read.
My rating: 3 stars

Review: THE DECEPTION by Carla Howatt

Julia was married with a so-called perfect life, but she often felt bored and restless. Perhaps she could take ballroom dance lessons, which was really an excuse to get out of “a deep hold of depression brought on by the knowledge she could not get pregnant.”
Julia just seemed to think that everyone’s life was better than hers. Ordinarily she wouldn’t mind that her husband’s work often took him away on business trips (that was just the way it was) until doubt settles in and she begins to wonder what he actually does when he’s away. That compiled with the odd behavior she’s been noticing lately. At it would seem that someone’s been watching her.
Story had an easy narrative. The whole thing is written in a diary format as Julia relays Derek’s odd and distant tendencies. She spends most of her time trying to figure what’s wrong with him. I thought this was interesting, but it seemed slow and uneventful.
An okay read.
My rating: 3 stars

Review: MURDER IN THE FAMILY by Paula Bernstein

Hannah Kline is the mother of a 4-year old and a doctor. Suddenly, her sister-in-law, Beth, was found stabbed to death in her Venice apartment. Beth was hit hard by the news. First, her husband; now, Beth. Who had killed her? Her mind wouldn’t let her rest until she found out. Was the victim raped? Was she pregnant?


At first, it seemed like Hannah would do anything to find the killer, but, really, most of the work was being done by Detective Daniel Ross and his partner. They don’t really work together to solve the case. They just both feel the same in the sense that they want the killer caught. In fact, the whole thing almost felt like 2 separate stories. Hannah was knee-deep in disgusting play-by-play surgical stuff while raising a daughter; and the detective was busy working the case. I don’t know why this is considered a Hannah Kline mystery when she really doesn’t do anything; it’s Daniel that does all the grunt work. Also, Hannah’s past was really dull and insignificant (I skipped most of her parts.) But even Daniel’s part was too procedural and slow for me.


Story was well-written for the most part, but it really didn’t captivate me as much. This really should’ve been a Daniel Ross mystery.




My rating: 3 stars