Genre: Mystery/Action-Thriller
Description:
“How well do we ever know anyone? Even someone we might be falling in
love with…
On a rainy October morning, Mallory Petersen, private detective and
martial artist, discovers the corpse of her boyfriend, Bobby Furillo, in front
of her office in Des Moines, Iowa.
Bucking police authority and continually attacked by unknown
adversaries, Mallory discovers Bobby’s devastating secrets. Each new revelation
puts Mallory in deeper peril from powerful and dangerous people, but she won’t
stop until she learns the truth.”
Author:
“Stephen L. Brayton is a Sixth Degree Black Belt and certified
instructor with over 30 years experience in The American Taekwondo Association.
He began writing as a child; his first short story concerned a true
incident about his reactions to discipline. During high school, he wrote for
the school newspaper and was a photographer for the yearbook. For a Mass Media
class, he wrote and edited a video project.
In college, he began a personal journal for a writing class; said
journal is ongoing. He was also a reporter for the college newspaper.
During his early twenties, while working for a Kewanee, Illinois radio
station, he wrote a fantasy based story and a trilogy for a comic book.
He has been involved broadcasting, trucking, hospitality, newspaper
graphic design, and a pre-press camera operator at a publishing company.
He has written numerous short stories both horror and mystery.”
Appraisal:
This is an interesting story and is structured in an interesting way.
The “interesting way” it is structured is that it switches back and forth
between two times, one that it calls “now” and the other “then.” We start the
story in the “now” time with Mallory, our protagonist who is a private
investigator and martial arts instructor, getting asked a question by Lawrence,
Mallory’s current boyfriend. Lawrence is a police officer from a city a couple
hours away from where Mallory lives and is spending a weekend at her place. The
question Lawrence asks is “tell me a story about one of your toughest cases.”
Mallory does and oh, what a story it is. The story switches to “then” (some
period in the past when this case was happening) and Mallory begins to tell Lawrence
about the case that starts when she discovers the corpse of her then boyfriend
in front of her office.
The story goes back and forth between then and now with Lawrence and
Mallory getting to know each other better in the “now” while their discussion
provides a bit of foreshadowing in a unique way for the “then” part of the
story, which is where Mallory tells the full story of what the police and
Mallory, who does her own investigation, find while searching for the person
responsible for her boyfriend’s death. What Mallory finds is a lot of things
she’d have never guessed and a lot more involved than anyone would have
anticipated. It’s an intense story, only made more so by Mallory often getting
into situations that require her martial arts skills to get through them relatively
unscathed.
Buy now
from: Amazon US Amazon UK
FYI:
Some adult language.
Format/Typo
Issues:
Review is based on an ARC (advanced review copy) so I can’t gauge the
final product in this area.
Rating: ****
Four Stars
Reviewed
by: BigAl
Approximate word count: 80-85,000 words
No comments:
Post a Comment