Roses & Thorns

Roses & Thorns

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

The Church of Spilled Blood by Jesse Miles #Thriller #Suspense #RussianBallet



The Plot:

Jack Salvo teaches philosophy one night a week at a local community college, but he pays his bills by working as a Los Angeles private detective.

When a group of world-class Russian ballet dancers visits L.A., he signs on as a bodyguard. It’s a piece of cake. All he has to do is hang out with beautiful women. Then one of his charges is kidnapped from under his nose. In pursuing the kidnappers, he evades the FBI, finds bullet-riddled bodies near the Hollywood Sign, and dodges bullets.

Drawn into a web of deceit and maniacal revenge, he finds himself in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Now he’s a fish-out-of-water—an L.A. private eye in a strange land. The most popular historical site in town is called The Church of Our Savior Built on Spilled Blood. When Salvo tries to save the life of a ballerina with whom he has developed a close personal relationship, the church lives up to its name.

About the Author:

Jesse Miles grew up in central California, where his ancestors had arrived from Arkansas and Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl migration. When he was eleven years old, his father took him on a business trip to Los Angeles, and little Jesse immediately decided he wanted to live in L.A.

During his college years in Orange County and Los Angeles, his part-time and summer jobs included work as an insurance investigator in the Hollywood area. That particular work experience provided some thought-provoking insights into the human condition and laid part of the foundation for his writing detective novels.

He earned an MBA at UCLA and put in three decades with a large corporation, working mostly in computer security and other phases of security. Over the years, he worked with a wide range of law enforcement and military intelligence veterans, learning many lessons of criminality, investigation, and survival.

Jesse currently lives in the Brentwood district of Los Angeles. His interests include classic films, pro football, pro bicycle racing, Russian ballet, and Formula 1. In his spare time, he goes to the gym and hikes in the Santa Monica Mountains.

For more detail see his website at http://jessemilesbooks.com.

Review:

Jack Salvo is an unusual kind of private investigator. He teaches philosophy, and is a romantic. He lives in a nice area of Los Angeles, but his office is in a run-down neighborhood. When he’s offered the opportunity to act as bodyguard to a group of visiting Russian ballerinas who already have their own security detail, he takes it, figuring it’ll be a nice vacation watching pretty girls dance—until one of the girls is kidnapped on his watch. Despite the fact that the LAPD, FBI, and Russian police are on the case, Jack can’t let it go. The girl was his responsibility.

I like Jack. He’s a refreshing kind of hero—an alpha male who isn’t overly macho. He doesn’t have bulging biceps, and everyone knows ballet dancers are usually built like stick-figures, so the heroine doesn’t have “lush curves.” Maybe I’ve been reading too many bodice-rippers. Maybe it’s because he’s written by a man.

Are writers getting better or am I starting to get senile? Mr. Miles not only held my attention from the first page; he kept me guessing until the end. And someone in his circle actually knows grammar. The Church of Spilled Blood was a pleasure to read!

Author Website:  http://jessemilesbooks.com
Warnings:  Violence
Length:  218 Pages
Digital Price:  $2.99

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