Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Description:
“Fans of rock star Stone Wall call Ryn a whore--in a class of her
own--for staying with the abusive music legend. Hey, the prime suspect in his
murder, she inherited his $250-million-dollar estate.
So what if Ryn uses the money to run Esperanza House--a place of hope
and renewal? So what if thirteen ex-prostitutes live there with their kids
mastering computer skills to stay off the street? So what if a hundred percent
of the women are working the program with great success? Once a ho, always a
ho.
Then, a 3-alarm fire destroys the Esperanza House dorm. The body of a
13-year-old girl is found in the rubble. Brutally murdered. The women rally
around the inconsolable mother while fighting their own despair. Who will track
the killer of the daughter of a former ho?
Old nightmares and current obsessions drive Ryn to undertake a search
for justice. One dead end after the other finally brings her face-to-face with
the murderer. Her discovery rocks her to the core and threatens to destroy
Esperanza House.
Can she look the other way?”
Author:
AB Plum is the author of numerous books ranging from psychological
suspense to mysteries and even some romantic suspense novels in her early days
as a novelist. After growing up in southern Missouri, Ms Plum lived and worked
in a wide variety of places including multiple countries in Central and South
America. She now lives with her husband in the Silicon Valley area of California.
For more, visit Ms Plum’s website.
Appraisal:
There was much about this I liked. The characters, not only Ryn, the
main character in this story, but the other characters as well, were much
different from the people I run into in a typical book or real life. Yet they
felt real. Many of the characters, from Ryn to her ward and frequent sidekick
Beau, to the residents of Esperanza House, the home for ex-hookers turning
their lives around, are damaged in different ways, yet working through this,
which makes them sympathetic. Seeing the world from Ryn’s point of view was
strange at times, but made for a unique story that I mostly enjoyed reading. At
the heart of the story is figuring out whodunit it, and Ryn eventually does
figure that out. I had several theories occur to me, none of which was the
right answer. Maybe you’ll do better. I was surprised, which I see as a
positive in this kind of book, at least if answer is one that could have
reasonably have been considered. I’d say this ending barely fits that criteria,
but it’s a close call. I can’t say more without giving spoilers, so I’ll leave
it at that.
However, I had two issues with the book, one minor, the other I
considered more serious. The big problem was proofreading. I spotted way too
many proofing issues, enough to knock a full star off of what I’d have
otherwise given the book. These ranged from typos, to wrong or missing words,
to one instance where a character was referred to by the wrong name. My minor
issue was the use of Spanish, specifically a line or two here and there
throughout the book. The times it was used were reasonable and generally
positive in they added to the feel of the story, emphasizing the culture the
character came from or other good reasons. But they also weren’t phrases that a
typical person without a fair amount of Spanish knowledge would understand.
Sometimes I could translate the phrase. Sometimes, even though I didn’t know the
translation, I felt as though I could get the gist of what it was communicating.
But too much of the time I felt like I was in the dark and was probably missing
something that, while not critical, I’d like to know. Depending on your answer
to habla usted Espanol?, this may be a non-issue or even if you don’t
speak Spanish, it might not bother you like it sometimes did me.
Buy now
from: Amazon US Amazon UK
FYI:
Some adult language.
This is the second book in a series, but can be read as a stand-alone.
I haven’t read the first book in the series and didn’t feel like I had issues
understanding what I needed to know from the character’s past.
Format/Typo
Issues:
Way too many proofreading issues (typos, wrong words, at least one
wrong name, etc).
Rating: ***
Three Stars
Reviewed
by: BigAl
Approximate word count: 95-100,000 words
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