UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES: A Mad Max Mystery

by Betsy Ashton

Maxine "Mad Max" Davies is living a privileged life in Manhattan when her only daughter is seriously injured in an auto accident. Mad Max rushes to Richmond, Virginia, to care for her daughter and her two grandchildren, 10-year-old Alex and 12-year-old Emilie, a child with special gifts. When her mother's condition deteriorates, Emilie's gifts help her feel the thoughts of others. She acts as Mad Max's early warning system. When evil stalks the family, Mad Max and her grandchildren work together to identify the source and stop it.

Genres: Mystery

240 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Find me on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/betsy.ashton and on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00AXZXUKE.

Born in Washington, DC, I was raised in Southern California where I ran wild with coyotes in the hills above Malibu. I worked in the military-industrial complex, academia, as a consultant, and now as a full-time writer. I am the author of UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES, UNCHARTED TERRITORY, and UNSAFE HAVEN, Mad Max mysteries. My stand-alone psychological suspense novel, EYES WITHOUT A FACE, features a female serial killer, that oh-so-rare creature. OUT OF THE DESERT is a piece of literary fiction, a coming-of-age novel which follows a group of children growing up in the Mojave Desert. They leave and return in search of a way to chart new paths.

Reviews

[Maggie · Rating 5 out of 5]

With Mad Max: Unintended Consequences Betsy Ashton has given us a fresh and original crime story. It’s a study of how one woman’s automobile accident sets in motion a series of events that no one could have anticipated (hence the “Unintended Consequences” of the title). How her family endures tragedy through determination and the power of love makes this a compelling story.

[Lynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I never would have known about this book had it not been for a speaking engagement where Betsy Ashton showed up wearing her "writer" vest, a la Castle! She then spoke to our branch of National League of American Pen Women and I got a copy. (Another member had it from the previous book talk and liked it a lot.) So, I think it's important to say a few words to help get out the word that this is an author to keep on your "to read" list.

Mad Max is the nickname bestowed upon Maxine Davies by her grandchildren. Their texts refer to her as MM. MM is a well-to-do widow from New York who rushes to Richmond when her daughter is in an accident and on death's doorstep. A traumatic brain injury alters her daughter's personality, as they'd been warned it might, and as a result her priorities shift from being a devoted wife and mother to a self-centered, shallow woman with severe substance and alcohol abuse problems.

She is suddenly obsessed with plastic surgery and referred to a surgeon whose talent at reconstructing faces is unquestionably keen, as is his own obsession for women with a certain look. From there the story spirals into the murky world of vanity, control and, ultimately, rejection.

We know who the killer is from the get-go, but the story's appeal is in how the details are revealed. Don't want to spoil this for readers who enjoy surprises, but suffice to say MM is capable of using some rather unorthodox means to get at truth. The ending was a smidge predictable, but she handled it really well.

It's hard to call Betsy a "new" author when I know how long she worked on this book, but I'd like to encourage Goodreaders to read this one. If she's anything like Alafair Burke, each subsequent book is going to improve and she's already off to a very good start.

[Cherie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Betsy Ashton’s MAD MAX: UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES delights with a unique protagonist this reader won’t soon forget.

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES drops the reader into the glamour of New York City, but one phone call sends the protagonist, Mad Max, flying to homely Richmond, Virginia to take care of her daughter and her daughter’s family. Ashton creates characters that produce strong reactions to the reader. For example, I often wanted to shake Max’s daughter and son-in-law for their behavior. Max’s grandchildren are so much fun to read about, particularly Emilie. I want to learn more about her fantastic paranormal gift.

Then, there is Mad Max. She is perhaps one of my favorite protagonists. She’s strong, smart, witty, sophisticated, caring, independent, and the list goes on and on. She’s the voice of the new grandma—just don’t call her “Grandma,” though. She loves her life the way it is, but duty won’t let her back down from a challenge—even if it is taking care of her grandchildren or catching her daughter’s murderer.

The fast-paced writing style draws the reader into the action. Ashton unfolds a unique story that tugs on your heartstrings, clenches your fists at the injustice that happens to the characters, and then lightens with a humorous quip to release the tension and sadness. I laughed. I cried. I didn’t want to put the book down until the very end.

I highly recommend MAD MAX: UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES by Betsy Ashton, and I hope to read more of Mad Max Davies in the future.

[Diane Fanning · Rating 5 out of 5]

Being a grandmother is the cushiest job around: all the love and cuteness and little of the responsibility. Until everything goes wrong. The book opens with Mad Max moving back south to care for her grandchildren while her daughter is in a hospital recovering from an automobile accident.
It seems like a typical short-term bad situation and then bad turns to worse. The twists and turns seem to never stop. And you just don't see them coming until they punch you in the face. Mad Max even has to contend with a woman who has "all the charm of a rattlesnake that needs a root canal."
I thoroughly enjoyed this read and think you will, too.

[Wayne White · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finished Mad Max: Unintended Consequences over the weekend. Got drawn in so deep I ignored my own writing! Great read. A book review will follow in a couple of days and Betsy Ashton has agreed to an interview. Don't go away!

[Melinda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mad Max presented herself as a strong older female character. I loved her interactions as a sassy, hip, and slightly profane grandmother. She was a real, flawed, quirky human character. MM (the grandkids' abbreviation of Mad Max) clearly had a warm relationship with her daughter's two precocious offspring, though her relationship with her daughter Merry was strained.

Early in the story Merry suffered a horrific traffic accident that debilitated her, damaged her already mostly long-distance marriage, and altered her personality. When MM stayed to help out, her friends urged her to seize this second chance with her daughter as an opportunity to heal old wounds. I kept waiting for this to happen, but in spite of her friends' repeated urging, MM seemed incapable of the personal growth necessary to become a compassionate mother. I felt sorry for Merry as MM couldn't rise to the occasion of all a second chance required. "Tough love" didn't work out well for MM, though she did grow personally in her other relationships.

While with her daughter's family, a tragic crime occurred, provoking MM, her grandchildren, and her son-in-law to band together to solve the grisly mystery. The story kept me turning the pages to see if they could save the day. Each layer of the conundrum revealed deeper abnormal psychological layers behind the crime. Breathlessly, I moved quickly through the novel - first hoping for mother-daughter reconciliation, recovering from my dashed hopes in that area, and then rooting for MM and her team to solve the mystery! There was no disappointment here!

[Maureen Mullis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Betsy Ashton's cozy mystery, Mad Max: Unintended Consequences, is a fast-paced book that kept my attention from the get-go! Max Davies is a self-proclaimed "Great Dame" who has a life she loves in New York. She's done raising her kids and is enjoying her life with her friends, her charities and her varied interests. Her relationship with her daughter is, to say the least, strained and painful. But when she learns her daughter has been in a horrific accident she rushes to be there for her and her family.

Before long it becomes clear that the daughter she knew -- that her grandchildren loved and her son-in-law adored -- is gone. The woman left to them is becoming self-absorbed and an alcoholic and drug addict. When she meets a plastic surgeon who promises to change her life things take a dramatic turn for the worse. And when Max's daughter is murdered and her son-in-law arrested for it, Max and her grandchildren step up to find out who the real culprit is.

Max is quite the character and I am hoping for more from Ashton about her. Her grandchildren are equally interesting. Grandson Alex is a computer whiz and his sister Emilie has psychic abilities. Those talents, along with Max's flair for the dramatic make for some lively detective work. This is a threesome that deserve a second, and even a third, outing. I look forward to reading more.

[Debarati Choudhury · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maxine Davies (Mad Max) finds herself coming back to Richmond, Virginia, from Manhattan after her daughter Merry is seriously injured in a car accident.

Despite being a force to be reckoned with, Mad Max strives hard for winning the "Good Mommy" trophy by trying to create a better relationship with her daughter as a part of her "doo-wop".

The plot thickens when, whilst on the verge of recovery, Merry suddenly ends up getting murdered. Who killed her and why?

Although, Merry is dead, the murderer is still on the loose and there are many unanswered questions. Further confusions ensue as it turns out that Merry isn't the first victim, and definitely not the last.

The author does an excellent job in keeping me at the edge of my seat till the very end as Mad Max, along with her team, and an unusual twelve- year-old, set out to solve the hair-raising murder mystery and save the next victim before it's too late.

[Rhiannon Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Max gets the phone call that every parent dreads--you're daughter's been in an accident. Rushing to her daughter Merry's side and to support her, her husband and her children, Max leaves her life in New York City behind. What she believes will be a short stay becomes extended when her daughter's recovery doesn't go as planned. Merry is eventually allowed to go home but she is "different." Max stays on to help to family, but as the days pass, Max recognizes that something is terribly wrong with her daughter. Merry is withdrawn, taking multiple medications, drinking, and becoming obsessed with plastic surgery. Behind her downward spiral is a doctor with a motive. Under his (psychologically creepy) spell, Merry changes more dramatically in behavior and physical appearance. Mary's husband Whip hides in his work, leaving the children in Max's care until Max confronts him, pointing out that she will not be able to stay forver and that he needs to see what is really happening to his family. Finally reaching a breaking point when reviewing their destroyed finances,Whip demands a divorce, causing Merry and her doctor to act even more irrationally.

Read my full review here: http://www.ivoryowlreviews.blogspot.c...
*** I was given a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review ***

[Kimberly Dalferes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mad Max, Unintended Consequences provides wonderfully vivid descriptions for the reader as we follow the protagonist from New York to Richmond, VA. Ashton’s attention to detail, coupled with a terrific plot line with surprising twists, makes this read a terrific thriller. This book is not for the faint-hearted; it is a story that will keep you fully engaged until the very end. The author’s development of a strong, independent female central character is refreshing and will appeal to men and women alike. This reader hopes that Ashton has a sequel in the works; it would be a pity to not know what the future holds for Mad Max and her grandchildren. Betsy AshtonMad Max: Unintended Consequences

[Colleen Shogan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrific book that crosses genres - with a suspenseful ending!

[A.L. DeLeon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is for those who enjoy twists, turns, and the multi-facets of family dysfunction combined into a fast paced thriller of who did what and why.

[Brenda Rowell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great thriller! It takes twist and turns so you don’t want to put it down!

[Dean Robertson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although the plot of Betsy Ashton’s first Mad Max novel, Unintended Consequences, has plenty of intrigue to keep those pages turning, the heart of the novel is its characters. There are the women; I believe Ms. Ashton calls them her “dames.” And they are dames indeed. We meet the three friends—Raney, Eleanor, and Maxine, our narrator—as they gather “at a small table in Le Bistro in Soho.” They are “gossiping about their grandchildren,” and waiting for the opening of a show by a new artist at a fashionable gallery. It is, at this early moment in the novel, a New York story.

But Maxine is from Virginia and soon after they arrive at the gallery she receives a call that her daughter, Merry, has been in a serious automobile accident. Max drops everything, calls her car service, and heads to the airport. Much of the narrative follows her to the hospital in Richmond and to her discovery that Merry is in surgery, bleeding into her brain, in a coma. To say anything more about Merry would be a spoiler; we are pulled along with her and the family and friends who have convened in the hospital waiting room, and we get news as they do. And Ashton doesn't just develop each of these characters; she fills out in sometimes painfully realistic detail the dynamics of the relationships among them.

Equally strong are the supporting characters who serve as chorus and backdrop for the “dames.” There is Whip, Merry’s husband and the father of Maxine’s two grandchildren, Emilie and Alex, and The Colonel, Whip’s father. There is Bette, Merry’s best friend and the one who made the emergency call to Max at the gallery. We even get a feeling for Norm, Maxine’s driver in New York.

Altogether, Unintended Consequences is worth your time and a pleasurable, suspenseful reading experience that leaves you ready to meet these characters again.

[John Schwartz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Betsy Ashton’s Unintended Consequences is a spell-binding debut thriller. The central character is a dapper grandmother and widow, nick-named Mad Max by her grandchildren, ten-year-old Alex and twelve-year-old Emily or “Em” for short, who faces the hard choice of whether to take care of the family when her daughter Merry almost dies in a car accident or to continue her coveted social life and work in New York, though this work remains somewhat in the shadows for the reader. Merry recovers but her brain and face are heavily damaged. As a consequence her personality changes completely, which renders the family dysfunctional, the husband Whip, an enterprising construction engineer, desperate, and the marriage a wreck.
Then the story moves from the dramatic disintegration of a close-knit family to a catastrophic disruption when the mother’s plastic surgeon draws her into an adulterous relationship leading to her divorce. The family seems destabilized forever when the mother is found murdered and her husband the alleged culprit. While Whip is held in prison, Mad Max or MM for short is forced to take on the mother’s role taking care of the grandkids and at the same time solving the murder with their help.
The story is full of unexpected twists and revelations in which the grandchildren play a significant role under grandma’s smart leadership. This leads to charming but also timorous moments while Whip withers in prison pending the court case. You will like this page turner, written in a cool modern Mike Hammer-style (for those who still remember him), till the breathtaking end.

[Eleanor Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book and it left me with that "hated to see it end" feeling big time. The characters are all really unique yet somehow the writer ends up making them gel into a believable unit. The way the characters are thrown together and what transpires makes for truly entertaining reading. I really enjoyed the interaction between Emelie (my favorite character) and Maxine and each character's strength of will--even the unpleasant ones. It's a terrific and somewhat terrifying plot; the interesting thing is that you could actually imagine it happening. Some really nice moments in the dynamics between Maxine and her grandchildren lends to some really excellent dialogue, observations, and moving moments, all intertwined with a clever thriller. Well done and I can't wait for the next one--did I mention that?

[Beth Carpenter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an unusual story in that there are almost two separate books in one. We start off with a family tragedy. Max’s daughter is in a terrible accident and Max must go to her and help take care of her beloved grandkids until she is better. It soon becomes clear, though, that better may never come, and we feel Max’s frustration with the situation as things deteriorate. Then, something even more terrible happens, and the book morphs into a cozy mystery with Max, her grandchildren, and assorted friends working together to solve a crime and free an innocent man. Both parts of the book are well plotted and the characters are appealing, except of course for the villain who is satisfactorily horrifying. All the main characters are individuals we grow to admire, each with special investigative skills. I have a feeling we haven’t see the last of Max and her grandkids.

[Susan Union · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mad Max: Unintended Consequences is a thriller full of enticing twists and turns. Interesting, endearing characters make for a page-turning ride topped off with nail-biting courtroom drama and a climax that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Mad Max is a woman anyone would be lucky to have as a friend.

[Susanna Froese · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought the book was just OK. I wasn't particularly keen on the writing style - l found it a bit tedius and lackluster. It was an interesting storyline but I thought it lacked suspense and stimulation, became a bit repetitive as it neared the end, as if the authour wasn't sure where the story should go.

I received the book for free through Goodreads Giveaways

[Genilee Swope · Rating 5 out of 5]

A different kind of mystery

I really get tired of mysteries that keep to a formula. This book and it's sequel are very different. Some CSI. Some cozy. Even some romance. But it's Mad Max her self that makes it a good story. A strong but sensitive woman for whom family comes first. Loved reading this. Can t wait to read more by Betsy ashton

[Deborah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I couldn't put it down. An enjoyable read and absolute page turner!
The characters are well-developed and very real. I found myself caring for each of them and interested in how their issues resolved. Mad Max, herself, is a unique personality and I am eager to read her further adventures.

[Terri Leidich · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a delightful read with a good plot, memorable characters, and situations that kept me wondering what was coming next.

If you're looking for a book to curl up with on a lazy afternoon to be entertained, this one will not disappoint.

[Dina Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

A grandmother and her grandchildren join forces to fight against a serial killer.

I enjoyed the book—was never bored. There were a few bits at the end that got somewhat melodramatic, nothing too awful.

[Sonya · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good story, a light and easy read. It would be a great book to take on a trip. It is engaging and will keep the reader turning the pages.

[Andrea Brunais · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fine page-turning quality, an energetic pace and several characters who spring to life -- all make me want to read more in the Mad Max series from this author!

[Michael Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A character-driven story set in post-Katrina Mississippi. Wonderful characters, especially Max, determined to move forward with their lives after their own tragedy.

[Diane Bator · Rating 5 out of 5]

I couldn't put it down!

The killer wasn't a secret but I was curious how Max and her clever assistants would catch the bad guy! A really great read.