Hold a Scorpion

Diana Poole #2

by Melodie Johnson Howe

Diana Poole’s last movie was a flop, but she earned enough money to fix up her Malibu house. One afternoon standing outside it, she sees a woman across the highway waving at her. Diana doesn’t recognize her. Still waving, the woman walks into the oncoming cars and is killed instantly. Why would anyone do that?


The next night, while still horrified by the accident, Diana is held at gunpoint by a man demanding the dead woman’s scorpion. What kind of scorpion? A live one? A brooch? A pendant? Diana searches the accident scene and finds a diamond-encrusted object in the shape of a scorpion. Breathless, she remembers her movie star mother showing it to her the last time she saw her alive. 


Did the woman who was waving at her want her to see it? Was the woman’s death really an accident? Why did the gunman want the scorpion? Did her mother really die of natural causes? Could it have been murder? 


With the diamond-encrusted object as her only clue, Diana goes on a heart-pounding journey determined to find answers. But asking a lot of questions can upset people. Especially the unpredictable killer who is stalking her.

Genres: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense

240 pages, Hardcover

First published October 15, 2016

About the author

Melodie Johnson Howe is a mystery author and former actress. She began writing as a child, composing plays such as Nevada—a western that ended with the villain being sent to his room—and began acting in the mid-1960s. For a decade, she worked in movies alongside actors such as Clint Eastwood, Alan Alda, and James Caan. In the early 1980s, she left the Hollywood grind to pursue her dream of writing mysteries.

Howe’s first novel, The Mother Shadow (1989), featured Claire Conrad and Maggie Hill, whom Howe describes as “the female answer to Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin.” It was nominated for an Edgar Award, and was followed by a sequel, Beauty Dies (1994). Howe is also acclaimed for her short fiction. Her most recent book, Shooting Hollywood: The Diana Poole Stories (2012), is a collection of short stories starring a forty-year-old actress trying to make a comeback.

Reviews

[Dale]

An actress morphs into a Private Investigator!

My thanks to my contacts at Pegasus Books, Iris Blasi, Katie McGuire, and Maia Larson, for my advance reading copy of this book. You ladies rock!

Diana Poole is an ageing actress who is beginning to struggle for parts in movies. Diana is forty-one, although she looks ten years younger. She is a fanatic over moisture cream and keeps herself in shape.

At the moment she has just broke up an affair with a younger actor named Peter Bianchi, who isn’t taking it well. She is reading for a romantic lead in an upcoming movie, but so is another actress. Gabrielle Hays is Diana’s competition and is referred to by Diana as “her blonde shadow.”

When a woman called Elizabeth Rogers walks into traffic on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu; Diana is drawn into a web of deceit and danger. Ex-Lover but still friend Leo Heath becomes an unofficial partner when Diana’s friend Ryan hires the PI to look into the threats surrounding her.

Diana is threatened at gunpoint, has her home broken into and ransacked, and ends up in the hospital as the story winds through a series of strange twists.

The entire case seems to hinge on a jeweled scorpion dropped in the debris from Elizabeth Rogers’ death site. A jeweled scorpion that Diana has seen before…

The mystery is nicely paced and the ending is a twist I am not certain the reader will see coming!

I give this book five stars…

Quoth the Raven…

[Pat]

(Read in thea kobo edition.) It's been years since I read book 1, so probably I should have done that first, but the book was still engrossing and fun. I had some bad reading experiences with female amateur sleuths, so usually I avoid them; but Diana is a great character: believably tough without going overboard. Looking forward to reading book 3.

[Keith Raffel]

If Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe came back to life as a woman, he would be Melodie Johnson Howe's Diana Poole. In Hold A Scorpion, the 40ish movie actress Poole goes to battle against the hypocrisy, venality, and corruption that is Hollywood. Of course, she knows she can't win the war, but can't help but fight for what she can get. Ms. Howe starred in movies with Clint Eastwood, Alan Alda, and Beau Bridges and knows Hollywood as only an insider can. A terrific read.

[Mary Robinson]

I LOVED THIS BOOK. THE MAIN CHARACTER DIANA POOLE IS A FAILED MOVIE ACTRESS,SHE SEES A WOMAN CROSSING THE HIGHWAY WAVING AT HER. SHE DOESN'KNOW THE WOMAN BUT IS TRAUMATIZED BY THE SIGHT OF THE WOMAN BEING HIT BY A CAR.THE NEXY NIGHT A MAN HOLDS A GUN ON HER ASKING FOR THE SCORPION. SHE SEARCHES THE DEAD WOMAN ACCIDENT SCENE AND FINDS A PENDANT SHAPED LIKE A SCORPION. SHE THEN REMEMBERS AS BELONGING TO HER LOATE MOTHER.THIS STARTS HER JOURNEY TO FIND OUT WHO THE WOMAN WAS AND WHY SHE HAD HER MOTHER'S PENDANT. SHE FINDS HERSELF IN CONTINOUS DANGER WHILE SHE TRIES TO SOLVE THIS MYSTERY.tHERE WERE SO MANY TWISTS AND TURNS TO THIS STORY THAT KEPT ME READING UP TO THE END.

[Christina]

***I received a free copy of this ebook from NetGalley.com for review for the LoanStars program***

I found Hold A Scorpion to be a fun mystery story, with some great characters.
Unfortunately, my NetGalley ebook expired before I could finish reading it. (I have too many books on the go at one time.)
Although this book is on my "quit without finishing" shelf, I do intend to read it fully - after I read City of Mirrors, the first Diana Poole mystery.

[Lloyd Russell]

Short review coming.

[Jean]

Reviewed for Mystery Scene Magazine
https://www.mysteryscenemag.com/26-re...