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The Fall
"The judge will order you to talk and offer to put you in the witness protection program. You said you won't consider that. Why on earth?"
"I have a life, Mr. Norman."
"Well, if this man they want to wiretap really is connected, you won't for long."
"It's not fair!"
"But it's the law."
"What if I just refused to talk?"
"The judge will jail you for contempt until you testify. And I doubt the mob would trust you to accept an indefinite stay in County. Even in solitary you wouldn't be safe."
"Then I have no choice?"
Most of us are lucky that some simple action---one that we've performed a hundred times---doesn't suddenly plunge our entire life into a private hell. But undeserved or not, unheralded or not, that's what happens to Joanne Lessing, a freelance photographer and the divorced mother of a teenage son.
On a fine fall morning, sent to record the aftermath of Halloween in a town park, Joanne turns from the geese she is photographing to see a luxurious foreign car come speeding down the road at the park's edge. The driver, noticing Joanne aiming her camera and seeming to panic, veers and smacks into a Volkswagen parked at the curb. His car scrapes the curb and leaves.
Good citizen Joanne reports the accident and turns over her photos of the offending car to the police. Not until she sees a story in that evening's local paper does she have an answer to what has puzzled her all day: Why did the police immediately send a man to interview her and pick up her photos for a relatively minor accident in which no one was injured? The news story tells her that one of her neighbors had been murdered, a man who had once been the head of the local mob and has been living quietly in the FBI's witness protection program.
A flock of FBI agents arrive to work with the local police. The agents know who did the killing; they've been living with the effort to catch and convict the gang members. Among the single-minded "Feebies" is Agent Paul Minorini. He is the only one who seems to give some thought to the danger Joanne is in if the gangsters learn it was she who caught their car with her camera---and possibly caught some or all of its occupants as well. Minorini's worry about Joanne's safety puts him at odds with his partner, and his attraction to the besieged woman makes it almost impossible for him to perform his job. Meanwhile, spunky Joanne, trapped between the mob and the tunnel-vision agents, has some ideas of her own about how to handle her endangered life...if only she can make those ideas work.
"I have a life, Mr. Norman."
"Well, if this man they want to wiretap really is connected, you won't for long."
"It's not fair!"
"But it's the law."
"What if I just refused to talk?"
"The judge will jail you for contempt until you testify. And I doubt the mob would trust you to accept an indefinite stay in County. Even in solitary you wouldn't be safe."
"Then I have no choice?"
Most of us are lucky that some simple action---one that we've performed a hundred times---doesn't suddenly plunge our entire life into a private hell. But undeserved or not, unheralded or not, that's what happens to Joanne Lessing, a freelance photographer and the divorced mother of a teenage son.
On a fine fall morning, sent to record the aftermath of Halloween in a town park, Joanne turns from the geese she is photographing to see a luxurious foreign car come speeding down the road at the park's edge. The driver, noticing Joanne aiming her camera and seeming to panic, veers and smacks into a Volkswagen parked at the curb. His car scrapes the curb and leaves.
Good citizen Joanne reports the accident and turns over her photos of the offending car to the police. Not until she sees a story in that evening's local paper does she have an answer to what has puzzled her all day: Why did the police immediately send a man to interview her and pick up her photos for a relatively minor accident in which no one was injured? The news story tells her that one of her neighbors had been murdered, a man who had once been the head of the local mob and has been living quietly in the FBI's witness protection program.
A flock of FBI agents arrive to work with the local police. The agents know who did the killing; they've been living with the effort to catch and convict the gang members. Among the single-minded "Feebies" is Agent Paul Minorini. He is the only one who seems to give some thought to the danger Joanne is in if the gangsters learn it was she who caught their car with her camera---and possibly caught some or all of its occupants as well. Minorini's worry about Joanne's safety puts him at odds with his partner, and his attraction to the besieged woman makes it almost impossible for him to perform his job. Meanwhile, spunky Joanne, trapped between the mob and the tunnel-vision agents, has some ideas of her own about how to handle her endangered life...if only she can make those ideas work.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 2004
2 people are currently reading
7 people want to read
About the author
Michael Allen Dymmoch
16 books19 followersMichael Dymmoch was born in Illinois and grew up in a suburb northwest of Kentucky. As a child she kept a large number of small vertebrates for pets and aspired to become a snake charmer, Indian chief or veterinarian. She was precluded from realizing the former ambitions by a lack of charm and Indian ancestry and from the achieving the latter by poor grades in calculus and physics. This made her angry enough to kill. Fortunately, before committing mayhem, she stumbled upon a book titled Maybe You Should Write a Book and was persuaded to sublimate her felonious fantasies. Moving to Chicago gave Michael additional incentives to harm individuals who piss her off. On paper of course.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 18, 2008
What should have been a relatively routine day of snapping wildlife photographs takes an unexpected turn for the worse for Joanne Lessing. While heading back to her car, she sees a car racing toward her and moving as though the driver was a bit inebriated. In order to remember the details of the car and the driver, Joanne snaps a few shots with her camera. What she doesn't realize until later is that she just witnessed the escape of a mob hitman from the scene of the crime. Now, against her wishes, she and her son are thrown into protective custody until the time comes that she can testify against the mob boss behind the hit. What the Feds don't know is that Joanne is not one to sit back and just take the bumps that life throws at you; she prefers to bump back. From what I've been told, this is Dymmoch's first attempt at a fictionalized police novel and I'd say she does it very well (yes, "Michael" is a she). The story flows nicely and it doesn't patronize the reader in any way whatsoever. However, I felt that some more time could have been spent building up the characters and giving us a better chance to understand them and their emotions. The book is only 250 pages long and could have easily been longer without being a burden on the reader.
September 4, 2007
THE FALL (Suspense-Illinois-Cont)- G-
Michael Allen Dymmoch – Standalone
Thomas Dunne Books, 2004- Hardcover
Photographer Joanne Lessing instinctively takes pictures of a hit-and-run accident. But that instinct nearly costs her everything when her son discovers a bomb in their car. The driver of the hit-and-run turns out to be a contract killer for the mob.
*** The plot has way too many unnecessary characters. The title is interesting and relevant, but I objected to there not being ramifications for the characters actions. While I have been a huge fan of Dymmoch’s Calab/Thinnes series, I was very disappointed in this book.
Michael Allen Dymmoch – Standalone
Thomas Dunne Books, 2004- Hardcover
Photographer Joanne Lessing instinctively takes pictures of a hit-and-run accident. But that instinct nearly costs her everything when her son discovers a bomb in their car. The driver of the hit-and-run turns out to be a contract killer for the mob.
*** The plot has way too many unnecessary characters. The title is interesting and relevant, but I objected to there not being ramifications for the characters actions. While I have been a huge fan of Dymmoch’s Calab/Thinnes series, I was very disappointed in this book.
August 2, 2012
Very urban, very inner city and centered around organized crime.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews