Brazen Virtue (D.C. Detectives #2) May 2017 Book of the Month

[Sheery]

Grace McCabe was shocked to find her sister Kathleen living in a grungy D.C. suburb, supplementing her income as a phone sex operator after a bitter divorce. But with the company Fantasy, Inc. guaranteeing its employees complete anonymity, how dangerous could it really be? Grace was soon to learn the answer when she returned home one night to a horrifying scene that might have come from one of her own novels. Ignoring the warnings of cool-headed detective Ed Jackson, Grace sets her own daring trap to rouse a killer out of hiding. But what can protect her from a brilliant madman whose lust for murder stops at nothing...and no one?

[Jennifer, Just beyond normal ♑]

I have read this one..but it has been many, many years ago. It is added to my reading list for the month.

[CD {Boulder Blvd}]

Picked this book up at the library yesterday and then decided to go ahead and read it while Sacred Sins was still fresh in my memory.

[Sheery]

CD {Boulder Blvd} wrote: "Picked this book up at the library yesterday and then decided to go ahead and read it while Sacred Sins was still fresh in my memory."

I did the same thing CD. I'm looking forward to discussing it toward the middle of the month. :)

[Anita]

I've got it too. Trying to decide if I want to read it now or after Come Sundown.

[CD {Boulder Blvd}]

Anita wrote: "I've got it too. Trying to decide if I want to read it now or after Come Sundown."

I asked myself that same question. I went with Brazen Virtue but Come Sundown is staring me in the face....

[Anita]

Come Sundown "disappeared" from my coffee table last weekend, but it's back. My oldest daughter needed a book to read on her trip to Napa. She said it was great.

[Sheery]

Anita, That's really funny! I have a feeling that's my fiture! My daughters are too young for NR but they've informed me that they intend to read her books someday.

[CD {Boulder Blvd}]

Finished this last night and was surprised by how much I remembered from reading it years ago. It was still good, although I have to say that the technology aspect of it really dated the book.

[Anita]

I try to overlook the technology and pop culture aspects as they do date a book. I try to concentrate on the plot, but it's hard to ignore the facts that cell phones have become so important to everyone now.

[Anita]

Sheery wrote: "Anita, That's really funny! I have a feeling that's my fiture! My daughters are too young for NR but they've informed me that they intend to read her books someday."

When daughter #2 found out I Come Sundown it she told me "School is out June 23. That book is mine on June 24." She is a High School administrator and is super busy during the school year.

[Sheery]

Anita wrote: "Sheery wrote: "Anita, That's really funny! I have a feeling that's my fiture! My daughters are too young for NR but they've informed me that they intend to read her books someday."

When daughter #..."

At least she gave you a date. You know when you have to have it read by. :) Plus, if you have it done by then it'll be in time for our June BotM discussion.

Do you mind telling me how old your girls were when they started reading Nora? I discovered her in the early 90's when I was in college so I can't go by that.

[Sheery]

As for Brazen Virtue (and other books) that lack our current technology - I do my best to overlook that. However, I do agree that it sometimes dates a book. It's not always a bad thing, though.

[Anita]

My firstborn was in her mid 20's, early 2000's, when she discovered Nora. She read a lot of R.L. Stine and Steven King in high school. My second daughter started in college, she was an English major. Daughter #3 would rather kick a soccer ball, swing a bat or catch a wave. Book? Read a book I don't have to - no way. She's a PE teacher.

[Barbara "Cookie"]

She lean that book 📚 will be fun when the body won't and the mine is able

[Anita]

Kristin thinks she has a long way to go before she is to the point where the body won't.

[Barbara "Cookie"]

Was it yesterday I was 20 and now I am ## and the body won't

[Jennifer, Just beyond normal ♑]

I actually enjoy reading the older books that are missing cell phones and things like that.

[Anita]

About 50% done and I really like this one, the characters aren't perfect and their lives and families are messy, real people. I've read a couple of books lately that suffered from "perfection" and not in a good way.

[CD {Boulder Blvd}]

I get tired of perfect characters as well and I prefer characters with imperfections. It does make them seem more "real". I definitely liked Ed, but then I'm a beta hero fan.

And on a weird personal note: I really got tired of all the times the characters had to light up a cigarette. It almost became a plot distraction for me. Did anyone else notice this or am I did I just have a strange fixation?

[Anita]

Me too! This book was written in the late 80's and here in California we already had banned smoking in public buildings and there were designated smoking and non smoking areas in restaurants. Smoking was a known cause of cancer. Every one knew people were dying from it. I am appalled how casually it is treated in the book.

[Barbara "Cookie"]

You have to remember the time smoking was ok in building and the world thought smoking was ok

[Anita]

In the early 70's that is true, but by the late 80's things were changing.

[Jonetta]

California is a progressive state so you guys were ahead of most of the rest of the country. I was in the Washington DC area until 1995 and they were just moving to non smoking in building facilities around the beginning of that decade. I know because I was tasked with coming up with a policy for my company around 1991. Then I moved to NC, a tobacco state and there weren't any no smoking policies in the Piedmont Triad area. Laws banning smoking in public facilities started cropping up around the end of that decade.

I believe Nora was a smoker at the time so that habit sneaked into her stories.

[Vicki]

I just finished I liked it. I didn't care for Kathleen and felt sorry that Grace had her for a sister. The smoking thing is funny because it does date the story. I can remember when cigarettes were advertised on TV and who can forget the Marlboro Man? Things have definitely changed.