Chanticleer Book Reviews

Category: Reviews

OLYMPUS NIGHTS ON THE SQUARE, Book 2 of the JULIANA SERIES by Vanda Writer – LGBT Coming of Age, Post WWII New York City

Alice Huffman is an interesting young woman. She likes to go by the name of Al, likes to wear tuxedoes when she’s allowed to and has a burning desire to run a nightclub in NYC where beautiful men and women can mix, mingle, sing, and dance in whatever way they please. World War II has just ended. People should be ready to celebrate!

But Al has other burning desires as well, some she’s not quite ready to talk about. After all, she tells herself, having these kinds of feelings for one gorgeous woman doesn’t really make her one of those sexual perverts other people are talking about, or does it? Luckily, she has close friends, more like family, to help her deal with these questions during the tumultuous decade following the war. With them by her side, Al becomes the woman she was meant to be.

The extended title, or subtitle, LGBT Life in the Early Post War Years 1945-1955 is really the best description of this work. The novel begins immediately after the war and is chock full of specific details that may not have made it into the history books. In just one example, if a man like Al’s friend Max, was discovered to be homosexual while serving in the army, he was given a “blue discharge,” a piece of paper that would limit his employment possibilities for life.

We learn that freedoms for women, more public during the war, are severely curtailed as the men returning from overseas expect the home life they remember. In this tale, husbands exert control over their wives and women like Al are immediately suspected of “perversion” if they choose not to marry. It’s a tense time, growing more violent across the decade as McCarthyism and fear of communists in a Cold War with the Soviets becomes interwoven with the public campaign against all homosexuals, men and women alike. Every manner of insult is thrown at them. Al and Max understand they could lose everything they’ve worked for should either of them be discovered.

It’s against this historic backdrop that Vanda develops her characters. In this second book of the Juliana series, the singer figures prominently, but in many ways, it’s Al cast as her young, secret, confused lover and eventual career director, who steals the floor show. The tension between Al and Juliana’s legal husband, Richard, is tragic and powerful and continues to grow throughout the work. Al herself is growing in every chapter, and changes from a terrified girl with an impossible dream, to a businesswoman who has earned the grudging respect of many powerful men.

In this way, Olympus Nights can be seen as a Lesbian coming-of-age story with all the recognizable dangers present in the past that a more modern audience can still feel. Yet, even though the story really is centered on the women, the men in Al’s life also have important roles to play. We’re treated to historical glimpses of stars, such as Walter Winchell, Liberace, and Mayor O’Dwyer; and squirm with Max, Al’s mentor and ally, and Marty, a former soldier and aspiring actor, as they struggle to be their true selves. In every chapter, Vanda highlights the political climate of the times and brings forth a wealth of information describing the anti-Gay, anti-People of Color, anti-Communist, anti-Jew, and anti-Woman policies in New York City and America, during that decade.

It isn’t hard to make the connections Vanda wants the reader to see, that these intolerant policies are making a resurgence years later, and that they have an ugly history of repression and violence effecting real people. Her creation of characters we care about, struggling to be themselves against every threat, every unjust law, attempts to remove the stigma of “other” and “pervert” and every other horrible name homosexual individuals have been forced to live under.

November 16, 2017
THE CAMERA’S EYE by Judith Kirscht – Mystery, Family Saga, Pacific Northwest

A peaceful home in the San Juan Islands turns perilous when two women are persecuted by residents who have plenty to hide when The Camera’s Eye is turned on them. Master storyteller Judith Kirscht presents a thrilling mystery with heart, ripe for today’s environment and rich for readers.

Veronica and Charlotte considered themselves unlikely targets of hate crimes, after all, who wouldn’t like two nice white-haired ladies who share a home for economy and company on an island in Washington’s Puget Sound? Both women have tragic family histories which they thought they’d left behind, but trouble never really lies quietly for long.

Veronica has the gift of capturing the truth with her constant companion, Constance, her beloved Nikon camera. When she captures an uncomfortable truth in their new neighborhood, the eye of persecution turns and focuses on her and Charlotte. In The Camera’s Eye, the reader comes face to face with how perception encourages action, and how action can either heal or destroy.

From the beginning scene, Veronica and Charlotte are in jeopardy as a rock is thrown through their window in the middle of the night. Who would do such a thing? With pasts that cultivated their own sets of demons, the friends have their own ideas, and the field is rife with possibilities. However, when the local law enforcement shows up and suggests that their lifestyle is to blame for the attack, the women go on the defense and start their own investigation as to who and why they have suddenly become targets.

This story is not to be confused with a cozy. Kirscht opens the story with violence and forces the reader to examine the many results of hard decisions made with the best intentions, and question philosophies based on the letter of the law rather than on love. It’s a mystery, certainly, but with an unrelenting grip and careful sleuthing that feels more sinister as the plot unfolds.

Rich with superb dialogue and beautifully penned scenes, The Camera’s Eye is typical of Kirscht’s style and readers will be hard-pressed to set this book down. As one event leads to another escalating event, our characters wits and wills are tested as they struggle to make sense of the violent hatred surrounding them and the blatant disregard for their well-being at the hands of the authorities who are supposed to protect them.

A Chicago native and multi-award-winning author, Judith Kirscht makes her home on an island in the Puget Sound in Washington state where she spends her time taking her dogs for walks, discussing dinner plans with friends, and penning her next literary masterpiece. The Camera’s Eye is Kirscht’s fifth novel.

“In a world where too many rocks are thrown at those who represent anything other than the norm in middle-class white America, two friends decide to take matters into their own hands and stand up to the hatred with which they are targeted in order to save their home and ultimately their lives. Hot off the shelf from the literary award-winning author, Judith Kirscht, The Camera’s Eye will challenge the reader to focus on what they believe and how their beliefs inform their actions. A very important book for our times.”

November 16, 2017
The ALEXANDRITE: A HOLLYWOOD TIME-TRAVEL NOIR by Rick Lenz – Magic Realism, Hollywood, Time Travel

Time-travel Noir becomes High Art with a wicked sense of humor in this fast-paced novel that offers up alternate views of Hollywood’s past and present.

Washed-out and with the doors of opportunity slamming shut on all sides, actor Jack Cade is the poster boy for the “bad things happen in threes” mantra. Getting cut from a crappy, no-pay play was just the tip of his career-crushing iceberg. His agent, who lost faith in Jack way back in another epoch, manages to dig up a temporary life preserver – an audition for a part that has Jack written all over it. An audition he misses. And Jack’s wife, no longer able to stay afloat in his sinkhole of alcohol and “bleeding actor’s ego,” jumps ship.

Just when it starts looking like it’s lights-out for Jack, an anonymous envelope lands in his mailbox. Inside is a pawn ticket that leads him to an Alexandrite ring and a psycho-physicist who claims to hold the secret of time travel. With Jack’s personal and professional lives collapsing in on him like a black hole, he walks out of 1996 and into the heyday of mid-Century Hollywood. He also walks into another man’s shoes, not to mention the scene of his recurring nightmare. Armed with “fore-knowledge” Jack has a chance to make things right in two different time periods. The only question is, how many times will he have to jump across the spectrum of an alternate reality to get it right?

Drawing from his extensive experience in the entertainment industry, author Rick Lenz delivers a stellar and believable cast of characters. From Jack Cade, whose love-hate relationship with the movie industry keeps him on the razor’s edge of failure, to Jack’s 1956 incarnation – or possibly alter-ego – Richard Blake, a movie-star handsome gemologist, whose an angry alcoholic wife and sultry, mentally impaired sister-in-law set the stage for their own rendition of a sweaty Tennessee Williams play. And there’s the incomparably complex, multi-faceted Marilyn Monroe, at the peak of her career—the golden thread that weaves everyone’s story together.

Steeped in Hollywood history and culture, The Alexandrite entices the reader with snippets of iconic set locations, facades, meeting places, studios, and stars. But the novel is more than a torch song to the movie industry. It is also a paean to hard-working actors whose careers, like Jack’s, straddle a razor.

Somerset Grand Prize award winner for Literary and Contemporary Fiction along with multiple other literary awards, The Alexandrite by Rick Lenz playfully challenges the reader to ask questions about a world that exists outside of the four dimensions in which we live. A must-read for anyone and everyone who has been touched by the magic of Hollywood.

November 6, 2017
COME the WIND by Alexander Edlund – Fantasy, War, Coming of Age Y/A

With Come the Wind—the second in his series, The Book of Banea—author Alexander Edlund creates a lush tapestry of fantasy, coming of age story that links the power of one woman to the skills and talents of all women.

Breea Banea, born to the Library of Limtir, became aware of her destiny as an Alach “weaver” or manipulator of etheric energies in A Woman Warrior Born, causing her to take up arms against the mysterious Oregule threatening her people. In Come the Wind we learn that the Oregule are in fact evil shapeshifters manipulated by an ancient enemy of Limtir. In her attempt to overcome the Oregule, Breea must free the regions they dominate. She will do so both as a warrior, and more reluctantly, as a queen, a role she adopts in order to recruit the Kultash and other peoples to her side in battle.

In her new role as “Chosen,” Breea, a natural leader, will meet war victims needing help, consider the possibly duplicitous priest, Duyazen, and convene with leaders of all the region’s armies whose support she needs, but who mistrust her new edict that women can fight alongside men. But most significantly perhaps, she is approached by a stranger who speaks her Limtir tongue and advises her of a great prophecy concerning “six Alach-born children who are destined each to destroy an Oregule. A child each of earth, wind, life, light, fire, and song.”

Unknown to Breea, even as this fateful prediction is uttered two of her own faithful followers, the lord Taumea and his companion Valenia are already on the trail of Alach sisters, Anila and Spe, who though young, display mighty powers not unlike those to which Breea herself is heir. Together they will take on the nefarious Oregule.

Edmund’s prose is potent, with no wasted words and many splendid ones. He celebrates Breea’s warrior nature along with her wisdom and the extraordinary abilities she has been given while showing her “human” failings and self-doubts for balance. She is always willing to take advice from her servant Dori and the refugee Simarn, who is proving herself to be as strong and fearless as her new queen. Though at times seeming burdened with holding together the fabric of his fantasy through every conceivable situation, Edlund is as faithful as he can be to the powers and limitations of every character and creature he has created. His book would benefit with a brief precis of the first volume in the series to bring the reader up to speed, even a glossary of terms would be useful. This is no slight – it is indicative of an exceptionally intricate world and readers will not want to miss a beat.

In this war and weapon-filled coming of age fantasy, one woman’s strengths and aspirations prove her worthiness as a leader. Exceptionally intricate world building and potent prose — readers will not want to miss a beat of this epic fantasy!

November 3, 2017
A WOMAN of NOTE by Carol Cram – Historical Fiction, Literary, Vienna

Isabette Gruber is in a panic. If only her sister were still with her to steady her hands on the keyboard as she plays Beethoven’s Eighth Sonata, known as the “Pathetique,” in her first public concert at Vienna’s Hofburg Palace. Then she hears Johanna’s voice in her head, and her poise and confidence return. The nineteen-year-old Isabette raises her hands, shapes her fingers above the keyboard, and launches into the “Pathetique.” Her powerful performance thrills the audience, whose applause continues through a third bow, and does honor to its composer, Ludwig van Beethoven, whose funeral took place in Vienna that very day, March 29, 1827.

Filling Isabette’s heart more than the applause, however, are the words of praise from her beautiful, new American friend, eighteen-year-old Amelia Mason, who received four bows for her extraordinary vocal performance. Afterward, Amelia asks the young virtuoso pianist to become her accompanist. Isabette is eager to hear more about this enticing proposition, but Mama arrives with her cloak. Herr Dietrich (her indecorous manager) is waiting with their carriage. “Hurry, Isabette!”

In A Woman of Note, Carol Cram has crafted a second brilliant female artist, this time a pianist and composer in 19^th-century Vienna. Isabette must fight to establish her position in the male-dominated European world of classical music, much as Cram’s Sofia had to do in 14^th-century Italy’s world of painting, in The Towers of Tuscany (2014). Cram’s precise, colorful writing enables us to hear the young Isabette playing the “Pathetique” in Hofburg Palace, see her enjoying a stroll with Amelia in the Prater, feel her pain over the loss of father and sister, and appreciate her determined efforts to convince music publisher Herr Weissel to accept her compositions, under the pseudonym of Anson Kruetzer. (Weissel roars with laughter, but agrees!)

Once home from the Hofburg, Isabette thinks back to her practice session that morning in the small, dusty parlor of the apartment where she lives with her mother. With a heavy heart, she remembers what a happy home this had been when her sister Johanna and she shared both a talent and a love for music and were skillfully taught to play and compose by their proud father. Now Papa is dead, Johanna is in an asylum, and Mama seems to think of Isabette more as a means to an income than as her younger daughter. The tall, lanky girl with a plain face and dull, straight hair never gives a thought to her social life or the possibility of marriage and children. Her every moment is devoted to practicing. Tonight, though, she thinks of a new life with Amelia in it. Soon, they are together every day practicing, but also developing their friendship as they go for long walks around Vienna.

When piano teacher Josef Hauser, who fancies himself a superior composer, meets the two young women, the story’s complexity grows. Josef is enamored with Amelia’s beauty but enthralled with Isabette’s talent. (In fact, he agrees to become her teacher if she revises his compositions so they will be accepted for publication.) Isabette treasures every minute she spends with the vibrant, cheerful Amelia, but feels uncomfortable when Amelia strokes her arms and kisses her neck. Amelia is jealous of Josef’s attention to Isabette during her piano lessons. Isabette realizes she could love Josef but knows that he is passionate about Amelia and could never feel that way about her. Then Josef’s flutist/poet friend Daniel Leitner joins the threesome. Gentleman that he is, he maintains a discreet distance from the ladies at least for a time.

Readers will love Carol Cram’s colorful writing and attention to the minute details of daily life at this time in European history. Even more enjoyable, however, will be finding out where her intertwining love stories lead as the characters mature. The book never loses its pace. and readers will be rapidly turning the pages until the very end.

While the cameo appearances and mentions of such famous musicians as Johann Hummel, Carl Czerny, Franz Schubert, Fredric Chopin, Robert Schumann and his wife Clara, and Louise Farrenc are of course fictional, they add drama and reality to the story, which is based on Cram’s meticulous research. An Author’s Note provides background on actual women composers of the time and place.

A young virtuoso pianist rises above the many musicians of her time, blazing a path of passion for music and love that is hers and hers alone in nineteenth-century Vienna.

November 1, 2017
MY DEAR WIFE and CHILDREN: CIVIL WAR LETTERS FROM a 2nd MINNESOTA VOLUNTEER by Nick K. Adams – Civil War Memoir, Family Letters

Collected and annotated by the great-great-grandson of a Union soldier, these recollections of the Civil War take on new life and meaning in current times.

Nick K. Adams, a retired schoolteacher and Civil War re-enactor, was fortunate to have access to letters written by his ancestor, Brainard Griffin. A Minnesota farmer, Griffin volunteered to fight for the Union, leaving behind his wife Minerva, their two young daughters and baby son. His first letter home was written on September 30, 1861. The letters, 100 in all, express his longing to be back home while describing in often minute detail the life of an ordinary combatant.

Griffin wrote the letters in quiet times, holding a board or his knapsack on his lap as a table. The repeated themes are poignant: loving messages to his wife and children, advice for the management of the farm, even bits of gossip.

Money worries were constant; at one point Griffin washed the clothes of other soldiers so he could send more of his pay back to his family. Around the mid-point in his service he avows that, “experience is a good school,” assuring “Nerva” that when he returns, he will “prize” his time with family and home.

Griffin’s regiment traveled extensively through Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama, constantly on the alert, experiencing battles, sickness and the travails of heat, mud, and snow. He observed the ravages of war in the farming communities and burned-down towns he passed through and saw firsthand the horrors of a field hospital. He met slaves and engaged them in personal conversation. He often lamented “the curse of slavery” and vowed to fight to end it. From the outset, he believed that the war would soon be over—in a few months, or a year at the most. His accounts of mealtimes indicate the increasing stress on the army’s resources: from coffee twice a day, pancakes, beef, fresh fruits, even pies, to half rations for months at a time, and towards the end of his accounts, mostly salted meat and crackers.

Despite his optimism that the war would soon end, and his repeated visions of returning to Minerva and the children, Griffin was killed in the first few moments of the savage Battle of Chickamauga, two years after his first letter home, and was buried by Confederate soldiers in a mass grave.

Adams has taken care to present the letters in their original form. Before each section, he highlights the coming contents and includes a map of troop movements. Though there is repetition, it seems fitting that almost every letter begins and ends with loving greetings to Griffin’s wife and children (some written directly to the girls), and that all express the simple daily trials of the foot soldier. Griffin had illnesses, lost teeth, grew a beard, and never ceased encouraging his wife in her work on their homestead.

His homey remarks and even a bit of good-natured joking show him as a strong-willed, positive person, and his views on the progress of the national struggle reveal him as a thoughtful patriot with a mind to the future of his country and all its inhabitants.

November 1, 2017
CORRALLING KENZIE: BOOK 4 of the WINTERS SISTERS by Joanne Jaytanie – Genetic Engineering, Fantasy, Romance, Psychics

Jaytanie veers off the sister track with her introduction to brand-new characters in her latest sizzling Winters Sisters Series read, Corralling Kenzie.

Kenzie Vaughn leaps out of her bed in the dead of night, responding to a cry from her horse. She discovers Boone shot and bleeding out. Kenzie contacts her neighbor, Victory Winters, who happens to be the closest vet in the area. While Victory is tending to Boone and Kenzie, Logan Mendoza, one of the DNA-enhanced Special Operations Command team (SOCOM) who investigates her ranch, is confident that the notorious Kaleidoscope Group (KG) used the mysterious shooting to get to Kenzie. Further probing indicates that Kenzie’s background may provide essential clues, particularly from her brother, Marcus who was sent to an institution when he was seven.

It is during an attempt on Kenzie’s life that she encounters Marcus. He, in turn, sets up a meeting with SOCOM to divulge the connective tie with KG. Indeed, KG is in the process of furthering their diabolical DNA experimentation, and Kenzie is a key player. More information unfolds with each day as Kenzie develops friendships with the Winters sisters. During Logan’s assignment to guard Kenzie, the two become close, and their friendship evolves into a steamy romance. Logan determines to keep her safe even while he’s away on a brief mission. But upon his return, Kenzie is not around. She’s been kidnapped!

For fans who are caught up in the lives of the Winters sisters, they are in for a big surprise with Jaytanie’s fourth installment. Up to this point, books one thru three have mainly concentrated on Victory, Payton, and Willow and KG’s sinister schemes directed toward the girls. But with the addition of the sisters’ neighbor Kenzie, Jaytanie opens the door to a whole new world of outsiders who have fallen prey to DNA tampering. Although pseudo-realism in design, this chilling realm into the dark side of medicine is reminiscent of the grisly experiments on children throughout history.

Jaytanie does a stellar job balancing the bad and ugly with the good, and “good” comes in various forms, the most obvious from the alpha-male SOCOM team and the Winters sisters. But on a deeper level, Jaytanie has created relatable characters; their near-realistic personas are riddled with strengths and weakness, even on a romantic playing field. Certainly, when Logan and Kenzie get their mojo on, it’s steamy. Leading up to those moments, Jaytanie sets an example of what a beautiful friendship should look like—slow but steady.

As with all of the books in this series, Corralling Kenzie functions perfectly well as a stand-alone read. There is richness when readers start from the very beginning of the series. Let’s just say that Jaytanie is a master of all things and will thrill and delight new readers as well as her loyal fans with this new installment.

The exciting aspect of this series is that book four does not complete the set. Closing on a major cliffhanger, Jaytanie has much more in store for her beloved audience. Stay tuned!

October 29, 2017
The SILVER LINING: ENCOUNTERS WITH ANGELS by Phoebe Walker – Memoir

Imagine a crisp autumn afternoon, taking a walk with a favorite companion on a country lane. You share stories about life’s ups and downs; you both laugh and cry. When you get to your destination, you give each other a goodbye hug and part separate ways with a smile, feeling a sense of strength in your friendship.

Meandering through the pages of Phoebe Walker’s, The Silver Lining Encounters with Angels, is like a walk down this country lane, leaving us with warmth and hope.

Admittedly, Walker’s book is a tough read – a story rife with abuse, her parent’s divorce at a young age, a suicide attempt, battling Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and other health concerns, and a near-death experience. It’s a lot to handle, for both the author and reader, but Walker makes the story accessible and down to earth with her conversational tone. Flipping through the pages is like a fireside chat.

In one early and instrumental memory, Walker recalls how she was introduced to God. In 1989, her friend Christi said, “speaking to Jesus was just like talking to your best friend.” Accepting Christi’s advice, Walker became convinced that certain people in her life were placed there by God as “silver linings.” “God provides the crutches,” Walker says in her memoir.

And so it went in Walker’s life, assigning silver linings to people who helped during dark days, including her loving husband Chip. The memoir is engaging and heartfelt, a recommended read for anyone wishing optimism and hope amid adversity.

Not only do we learn that Walker survived incredibly tough times, but also she thrived, earning a college degree, having children, and living a full life, later without vision due to MS.

A theme of revelation is what led her to write and share her story. She says: “By allowing myself to become fully exposed, I’m confident that not only will I continue on my journey of healing, but that it will offer hope, peace, and perhaps even direction to others. That makes sharing my story fully worth [it].” Today, she maintains a website displaying her art and ways she helps others through a life coaching business.

While Walker’s book takes us on an emotional rollercoaster, even to the edge of despair, she holds our hand with thoughtfulness and humor. She avoids lecturing and being preachy by staying in her own story, ultimately showing how her deep faith has healed her during life’s challenges.

October 29, 2017
ELEVEN – A BRANDON FISHER FBI Series #1 by Carolyn Arnold – Thriller/Suspense, Hard-Boiled Police Procedural

Carolyn Arnold’s absorbing crime thriller, Eleven, is taut with suspense from the very first page. Brandon Fisher, just starting his two-year probationary period with the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit, is doing his utmost to impress his supervisor, the legendary Special Agent Jack Harper, as they survey a shocking crime scene.

They’re standing in an underground dirt bunker with tunnels that lead to small, circular rooms with chicken wire pressed against the dirt walls. There are ten corpses in all, their bodies marked with identical incisions that tell a tale of ritualistic torture and murder. Only one victim has not been disemboweled. Brandon, growing more claustrophobic in the bunker by the second, struggles to show no emotion in front of unflappable Jack, but that’s difficult when he realizes the bunker contains a room for an eleventh victim. Before long, Brandon will learn that he very well could be the serial murderer’s next target. Could his first case be any more difficult?

The forensic team ascertains that the killer is highly intelligent and disciplined. While they have an immediate suspect, the team is also certain that the killer had a helper. Most of the book focuses on discerning who, amongst a large group of possibilities, serves as the accomplice. This second perpetrator is thought of as a “follower” or an “apprentice.” This mentor-apprentice relationship unnervingly echoes the relationship between Jack and Brandon.

Readers who are drawn to crime thrillers will not be disappointed with the details Brandon, Jack and the rest of the team sort through as they gather evidence. As the title of the book indicates, the number eleven is a key clue.

The dialogue involving the latest method s for extracting DNA from objects and lifting fingerprints indicates the author has done her homework; she integrates scientific details nicely into the plot. In fact, each member of the team is distinct and well realized.

This book is a fast read as the writing is straight-forward and engaging. Arnold leads the reader through some winding plot twists and each one is more riveting than the last. Suspense builds and builds and the ending is every bit as shocking as the opening pages of the novel. Although Jack tells Brandon, “This isn’t like TV,” there’s no doubt that fans of shows like CSI (in its various locations) and Criminal Minds (which has a small cameo) will want to read Eleven. Readers will find the book difficult to put down – and, if they do, they may very well sleep with the lights on.

A lead FBI agent hunts his prey and grooms his apprentice while a ritualistic killer does the very same thing. Riveting and disturbing, Eleven, is guaranteed to thrill and terrorize readers.

October 23, 2017
ENGAGED in DANGER: A JAMIE QUINN MYSTERY by Barbara-Venkataraman – Cozy Mystery/Thriller & Suspense, Amateur Sleuth

Did I really lose my guy to a Hairy-Nosed Wombat … a Northern Hairy-Nosed wombat? That’s the question that plagues attorney Jamie Quinn while she lays awake and stares at the ceiling every night. But it’s not too long after her boyfriend, Kip, drops his Save the Wombat bomb and flies off to Australia, that she has more immediate issues to keep her awake—secret business machinations, a hint of Russian collusion, blackmail, and murder, for starters.

In Engaged in Danger – A Jamie Quinn Mystery by Barbara Venkataraman anything is possible. And even though Hollywood, Florida where Jamie lives and practices family law is a small, quiet town surprising things happen there.

Three days after Kip announced his temp job and is packing for a three-month stint in Australia, an elegant, older woman walks into Jamie’s office seeking a divorce. Someone is trying to kill her spouse, but she doesn’t care—she just wants a divorce, and money is no problem. Interest piqued, Jamie soon learns the husband in question is the most “famous/infamous” (translated, rich, powerful, and politically connected) attorney in town. He also proves to be a crafty, dangerous opponent with fingers in many pies. On the home front, Jamie’s neighbors who are caring for their orphaned niece, ask Jamie to look into the details surrounding the recent plane crash that killed the child’s parents.

Enlisting the assistance of her BFF, corporate attorney Grace Anderson, along with that of the charming PI, Duke Broussard, a good old Louisiana boy who has one foot on either side of the law, Jamie simultaneously takes on the high-profile divorce case and the suspicious airplane crash. What ensues is an intriguing mix of characters and events interwoven into a mystery that satisfies even the pickiest fan.

While written as a stand-alone, this book is like a gift of Babushka dolls. Allusions to backstories and Jamie’s history with Kip, with her dad in Nicaragua whom she’s never met, with Grace, and with Duke can at times be distracting, at other times, tantalizing.

Engaged in Danger is a fast-paced, well-written cozy with its complex, quirky characters, and unique plot brings unexpected twists and turns and has more than a bit of romance tucked between its pages. Venkataraman tempers the story with wry, self-deprecating humor that entertains and engages the mind, tickles the funny-bone, warms the heart, and leaves the reader ready for more.

October 23, 2017