Hit and Run by Maxine O’Callaghan

Blurb:

The PI business has been hard on Delilah West over the last year. Her husband and business partner was murdered and her last case left her with a broken arm, cracked ribs, and big medical bills, forcing her to moonlight as a waitress to pay the bills. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she’s jogging on a rain-slicked road when a speeding Trans Am clips her and mows down an old man. But things take a bizarre turn when the driver’s mother hires Delilah to clear her teenage son of the hit & run killing that Delilah witnessed. Or did she? Nothing is what it appears to be in a twisty, deadly case, that could end with Delilah as road kill.

Review by Rochelle Weber:

Brash Books likes to revive old classics.  Hit and Run was first published in 1989, so our heroine, Delilah, has to work this case the old fashioned way—without Google or even a cell phone.  She doesn’t actually witness the Trans Am mowing down the elderly man; she hears a thud while pulling herself up from where she landed when the car climbed the curb where she was standing and she dove for safety.  Then, she found the body of Joseph Collins in the street while limping to a telephone booth trying to figure out who to call for a ride.  So when the teenage driver, Michael Morales’s mother swears the old man was already lying dead in the street and Mike did not realize he’d even hit a human being, Delilah agrees to think about taking the case.  And that’s when things start to get really weird.

The janitor in Delilah’s office building (where she’s living, hoping business will pick up) is a would-be sleuth named Harry Polk who is thrilled to have a real PI in the place.  He appoints himself as her assistant, and gets beaten up by someone who doesn’t want her to pursue her investigation. Charlie Colfax, a friend of her late husband, shows up and offers her various jobs, trying to get her to close her office and work for him.  He even introduces her to Erik Lundstrom, a millionaire who’s looking for someone to join his security team. The job even includes an apartment on Erik’s estate.  But when she sees Erik with one of the major players in the Collins case, she realizes the job was just another ploy to get her to stop investigating a case that seems to be pointing toward issues much larger than the death of an elderly gentleman.

Hit and Run sucked me in on the first page and didn’t spit me out until the end.  I liked Delilah and the people around her; even Michael Morales grew on me.  The only glitch I found was a tendency to use adjectives when Ms. O’Callaghan should have used adverbs, a trend I see about as often as comma splices which were blessedly missing from this book.  The characters were three dimensional, and the dialogue was natural.  Delilah West is the forerunner and role model for such female sleuths as V.I. Warshawski and Stephanie Plum, and she sets the bar pretty high.  Grab Hit and Run while you can, and see how it all started.

Length:  182 Pages

Prices:

Print:  $9.99

Digital:  $2.99

Buy Link:  http://mysterythrillerbooks.com/book/hit-run-coming-2015-maxine-ocallaghan/

You’ll notice we always include the publisher’s buy link. That’s because authors usually receive 40% of the book price from the publisher. Editors and cover artists usually receive about 5%. When you buy a book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or another third-party vendor, they take a hefty cut and the author, editors and cover artists receive their cuts from what is left. So, if a book costs $5.99 at E-Book Publisher.com and you buy from there, the author will receive about $2.40. If you buy the book at Amazon, the author will receive about $0.83.

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Thanks for visiting. Rose, Julie, Donna, & Rochelle

Funny, Warm, Suspenseful--Dream Child by J.J. DiBenedetto

Blurb:

Dr. Sara Alderson can deal with eighty-hour workweeks as a resident at Children’s Hospital. Dealing with crises in the Emergency Room or the OR is second nature to her. But now she faces a challenge that all of her training and experience hasn’t prepared her for: Lizzie, her four-year-old daughter, has inherited her ability to see other people’s dreams.

After Lizzie befriends a young boy on a trip to Washington, DC, and then wakes up in a panic that night because of a “bad funny dream,” Sara knows exactly what it means: her daughter is visiting the boy’s dreams. Complicating matters is the fact that the boy’s father is a Congressman, and he’s dreaming about a “scary man in a big black car” threatening his Daddy.

Unraveling a case of political corruption and blackmail would be hard enough for Sara under the best of circumstances. But when she has to view everything through the eyes of a toddler, it may be an impossible task.

Review by Rochelle Weber:

Dream Child is the third book in J.J. DiBenedetto’s Dream Series, and I feel as though Sara and her family are old friends—except for the newer additions, Lizzie and the twins. Sara, her mother-in-law Helen, and Lizzie are en-route to Washington, DC, for a medical conference when Lizzie meets five year-old Billy Hanratty. In an hilarious passage, Lizzie cleans and bandages a wound Billy sustains on a sharp piece of metal when the train zigs and the children zag. She uses soap and toilet paper, and insists Billy needs “a inna-veeny.” It takes Sara a moment to realize Lizzie means an intravenous solution, which she lets Lizzie explain to the fascinated passengers listening in. After “checking” Lizzie’s work and allowing her to cleanse the wound with an alcohol swab and dress it with a real bandage, Sara introduces herself to Billy’s mom and learns they are the family of the Congressman who represents her district in DC. That night, Lizzie starts visiting Billy’s dreams about his Daddy and a scary man in a big, black car, and Sara, her husband Paul, and best friend Beth have to unravel a mystery interpreted by a four year-old.

Again, Mr. DiBenedetto has written a terrific stand-alone thriller wrapped in the warmth of family, and fueled by other people’s dreams. This time, however, the dreams come from a pair of little kids, with only occasional “first-hand” glimpses when Sara visits Lizzie’s dreams while she’s seeing Billy’s. Talk about keeping a series fresh! As usual, Dream Child engaged me at the very beginning, especially with Lizzie’s account of her ministrations to Billy. The whole book is worth buying just to read that passage. And it kept me reading to the very end. There was even a day when I was at my volunteer job at the VA and decided not to open my computer and edit because I couldn’t put down my Kindle. Yes, Mr. DiBenedetto—you caused me to play hooky! Download a copy, get the paperback, or listen to the Audible version and maybe play a little hooky with Dream Child yourself.

Length:  278 Pages

Prices:

Print:  $10.24

Digital:  $3.99

Audible:  $21.83

Buy Link:  http://www.amazon.com/Dream-Child-Book-Dreams-ebook/dp/B00BW8JGE0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1423350935&sr=8-1&keywords=Dream+Child+%2B+jj+DiBenedetto

Thanks for visiting. Rose, Julie, Donna, & Rochelle

Core Punch by Pauline Baird Jones

Blurb:

A kiss may be all they have life expectancy for.

When an intergalactic cop exchange program serves up an alien partner for NONPD Detective Violet Baker, she can’t help wishing the handsome alien would be a little less Joe Friday about keeping the pleasure out of their business. Yeah, he’s kind of purple and she can’t pronounce his name to save her life, but he’s almost the only guy in the New Orleans New police department who she’s not related to.

Dzholh “Joe” Ban!drn has come a long way hunting the evil that has infiltrated Vi’s floating city. When he meets his charming partner, he discovers another reason to stamp out evil. If only he wasn’t keeping so many secrets from her…

When an epic hurricane heads their way, they are sent dirt side to New Orleans Old (NOO) on a rescue mission. But murder and sabotage strand them in the heart of the raging storm.

As they fight for their lives, Joe realizes the evil he’s hunting is actually hunting them.

Review by Rochelle Weber:

Core Punch was an exciting read. As a rookie, Violet’s assigned the oldest, clunkiest skimmer belonging to the NON force, so when “Joe” and Violet are plunged into feeder bands preceding the actual wall of the hurricane, they have enough difficulty navigating. They need to complete their mission and get topside to the safety of their floating city, because if they land dirtside they could drown in the storm surge. After all, Wu Tamika Felipe or WTF promised to be much worse than previous Category-Fives, like Katrina.

I would love to give Core Punch five roses, but I can’t quite do so. There were some editing glitches in the book, but the biggest problem was one of my pet peeves—it’s a cliff-hanger ending. I know; everyone’s doing it. Many of my favorite TV programs are series in which each episode is a cliff-hanger, and I’m just as hooked as everyone else. But waiting a week to find out what happens next is far different from waiting several months for the next book. If you don’t mind cliff-hangers, then it’s a great book. Otherwise, it’s a really good one.

Length:  140 Pages

Digital Price:  $3.99

Buy Link:  http://www.amazon.com/Core-Punch-Adventure-Uneasy-Future-ebook/dp/B00KWAD9Q0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1415259242&sr=8-1&keywords=Core+Punch+%2B+Pauline+Baird+Jones

Thanks for visiting. Rose, Julie, Donna, & Rochelle