Book Review: PURSUED

Written by Lillian Duncan
Review by Nike Chillemi

This is a lady any cowboy worth is saddle would like to take over his knee and spank. Reggie Meyers, former foster child, now a big city attorney on her way up the corporate ladder is a handful, to say the least. She’s a self-made success and hasn’t got much time for lesser mortals. Needless to say, when she plows her bright red sports car into Dylan Monroe’s aging pickup, she blames him.

Reggie is a short-tempered powerhouse with a definite vulnerable side. You want to be angry with her, but just can’t. Dylan on the other hand is easy going, solid, and a man who believes in prayer. The wonder of their relationship is he has no trouble handling her. Now protecting her from whoever is trying to kill her, that’s another matter entirely.

After an accident, even one she’s caused, what does such a gentleman do? He offers to drive the lady home. When Dylan and Reggie get to her condo, they find the place has been trashed. Reggie collapses and Dylan discovers she’s a diabetic, which accounts for some of her moodiness, as she hadn’t eaten all day. At first, Reggie assumes her ex did the trashing. Soon it becomes evident she’s got a lot bigger troubles than an inappropriate former boyfriend.

There is no shortage of twists and turns. It isn’t long before someone is shooting at Reggie. With Reggie stashed safely at a friend’s apartment, Dylan cleans up the mess in her apartment and finds a listening device. Since someone has been monitoring Reggie, they now know where she is hiding. Dylan rushes to the condo and saves her from a sneak attack.

After several more attempts on Reggie’s life Dylan takes her to the home of his mysterious, reclusive friend, security expert and ex-Marine Billy Clyde Addams and his charming wife Theresa. Billy Clyde discovers a large corporation is monitoring Reggie and Dylan’s movements. It turns out this company is owned by Reggie’s mysterious biological father.

The police determine a former law office client who thinks she mishandled his case made the attempts on Reggie’s life. He’s taken into custody and she is free to go home. Here the author puts a snag in the true love scenario. Reggie decides Dylan won’t fit into her upwardly mobile lifestyle, after all, he’s just a small town farmer. She wants to be happy but equates happiness with money and power. She doesn’t have the kind of faith Dylan has, though she’s starting to yearn for it. He asks her to marry him and she’s ecstatic. However, this is followed by a bunch of star-crossed misunderstandings.

All is not well on the safety issue front. Billy Clyde learns someone is still monitoring Reggie’s credit card activity. The action picks up again with ferocity. The climax is intense. This is a wonderful read, with fantastic characters for anyone who loves high caliber romantic suspense.

Book Review: The Clouds Roll Away

Written by Sibella Giorello
Reviewed by Nike Chillemi –

How do you come back from being stuck in the boonies on a disciplinary assignment with a modicum of self-respect? When she comes home, FBI Special Agent Raleigh Harmon has to run that gauntlet and face Victoria Phaup, her supervisor who hates her.

She’s back in her beloved Richmond, Virginia, assigned to a case and trying to keep her nose clean. Unfortunately that’s not going as well as she’d hoped. Phaup opens another investigation of her professional actions, which could send her back out to a tiny field office in nowhereland.

Raleigh is assigned to investigate a hate crime when someone burns a cross on the lawn in front of “Rapland,” an African American music mogul’s mansion. Is a snooty, blue-blooded champion of preserving the history of the old south responsible? When the initials KKK pop up, it seems this bigoted organization is rising from a poor neighborhoods where ignorant white supremists concoct their nefarious plots.

The case is given to Raleigh because it seemed like a no-brainer. Which Phaup feels is exactly what fits Raleigh’s capabilities. Raleigh finds evidence that all is not as it seems. Her supervisor is not interested in Raleigh’s assessment of the case and gives no credence whatsoever to Raleigh’s gut instincts. She saddles Raleigh’s with another low profile case involving gangbangers. When the two cases begin to intersect, Phaup thinks Raleigh may be forcing the issue. Needless to say, she’s is not a happy camper and now hopes to get Raleigh discharged from the FBI.

Raleigh is also traversing a difficult relationship with her “absolutely perfect sister” and her mother Nadine who has some psychological issues rooted in deep grief over the unsolved murder of her husband, Raleigh’s father. The beauty of the author’s prose takes the reader and Nadine through a very trying Christmas. By coming home, Raleigh had hoped to give Nadine a needed emotional lift, but she seems to increase her mother’s fragility. To add more confusion to the house, Wally, a struggling young photographer moves in as a tenant.

There’s a hint of romance. With Raleigh’s ex-boyfriend DeMott seemingly shadowing her, trying to get her to give him another chance, you have some complex plot twists. The novel is written in first person, which gets us deep into Raleigh’s head. I thoroughly believed the scene where her mind wanders to solving the case during a Christmas sermon in her church.

This is my kind of Christmas story, but the reader must be aware it’s pretty gritty and in parts reads like a CSI episode. There’s blood and guts all over the place in a few scenes. The author spins an incredible tale and ties together disparate storylines into an ending that comes as a complete surprise.

Book Review: The Hand of Fate

Written by Liz Wiehl and April Henry
Reviewed by Nike Chillemi –

The Hand of Fate is the second in the Triple Threat series. While I enjoyed the first book, Face of Betrayal, to my mind, the second book is better. Perhaps the authors simply hit their stride. The three main female characters are stronger and more developed in this book.

I love talk radio and this book catches the immediacy of the medium. Abrasive, opinionated, and self-centered, popular Portland talk-show host Jim Fate receives an envelope at the station and when he opens it, a powdery substance sprays in his face (possibly sarin), shortly thereafter killing him.

The members of the Triple Threat Club put their heads together to solve the broadcaster’s murder. Allison Pierce, a federal prosecutor, happily married and at the beginning of her first pregnancy, who is  also a practicing Christian. Nicole Hedges, the FBI special agent who is the lead on this case is a single mother, was brought up Christian, but is now an agnostic. Cassidy Shaw, a popular crime beat TV reporter feels she’s aging, is abusing prescribed sleep meds, has a tendency to hop from bed to bed, and had a relationship with the victim she’s trying to hide.

At first this appears to be a terrorist attack on the entire city, as sarin is that deadly. The downtown area is evacuated and there are injuries, heart attacks, and several deaths as result of the general evacuation. The pregnant Allison finds a tiny Hispanic girl who’s been separated from her mother and carries the child several miles to safety. After several hours of panic, medical personnel determine the substance is not sarin and the city is safe. Now the Triple Threat Club swing into action to find out who killed Jim Fate.

Fate, a combative, right wing, shock-jock, who we learn about posthumously, is a fascinating character. As the three women investigators look at the suspect list, they realize a shorter list would be one with people who liked the man.

Christian characters in this novel pray and seek solace in God, but the book is not preachy nor is there any heavy theology. A question that pops up in the last book is answered here. Why Nicole turned her back on God. While the novel is not too graphic, this is one of the scariest and most brutal parts of the book, which I can’t go into as it would be a huge spoiler. Cassidy continues to do stupid stuff, like combining a sleep aid with alcohol and falling asleep in a bathtub full of water — and her friends, like in the first novel, find they must rescue her…literally.

The identity of the murderer comes as a total surprise, as does the motive for the murder. One of the seemingly normal, career driven characters has an agenda, and well hidden underlying emotional issues.

I recommend Hand of Fate to murder mystery readers who enjoy novels that utilize contemporary, topical themes as sub-plots and back-story.

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