In this 13th book in the 'Sheriff Joanna Brady' series, Joanna has a new baby at home and a tough caseload at work. The book can be read as a standalone.
*****
Sheriff Joanna Brady of Cochise County, Arizona is having a hard week. An elderly couple - Alfred and Martha Beasley - drove off a cliff in an apparent double suicide.
A fire in a rented trailer killed an old man and left his daughter and grandchildren homeless.
Detective Jaime Carbajal's nephew found a human skull while scavenging for abandoned possessions around the United States-Mexico border.
And a disabled man named Wayne, who lives in a group home, is missing.
When Joanna and her detectives look into the incidents they learn that the Beasley couple's 'suicide' is suspicious; the trailer owner is accusing the dead man's grandkids of starting the fire; and the skull (and accompanying skeleton) belong to a murdered, mentally challenged woman named Wanda Mappin. Moreover, Wanda, who also lived in a group home, may have known the missing Wayne.
During their inquiries, the cops interview the Beasley's daughters - sexagenarian twins who hate each other, create chaos, and threaten to sue Sheriff Brady for (bogus) police brutality.
In addition to other inquiries, the police also question personnel associated with the group homes - who turn out to be less than forthcoming.
In Joanna's personal life, her husband Butch - a thriller writer who helps run the house, raise teen daughter Jenny, and care for baby Dennis - needs to go on a book tour to promote his first novel. So who's going to help out at home?
Joanna's mother is having an emotional crisis and is hardly speaking to her second husband, who happens to be Joanna's favorite medical examiner.
And Joanna reads her deceased father's journals and learns disturbing things about him.
The story is filled with drama and tragedy, and Joanna sheds some tears and shows her 'Irish temper' before the novel comes to a satisfactory conclusion.
By the end, Joanna must deal with changes both at home and at work, and it will be interesting to see how this plays out in subsequent books.
This is an enjoyable mystery, recommended to readers who like suspense novels, especially fans of Sheriff Joanna Brady.
Rating: 3 stars
In this first book in the 'Detective by Day' series, former actress Dayna Anderson is on the trail of a hit-and-run driver.
*****
Like lots of gals in Hollywood, Dayna Anderson wanted to be famous, and she was.....for a while. The pretty black actress was the face of "Chubby's Chicken"commercials for two years, until they 'went in a different direction.'
Since then Dayna has retired from acting, and supports herself with temp positions as best she can. This makes it tough for Dayna to buy gas for her Pepto-Bismol pink car or minutes for her pay-as-you-go phone.
To save money, Dayna has even moved into a combination bedroom/shoe closet (bloset) in her friend's apartment.
When Dayna hears that her parents can't pay their mortgage and are about to lose their house, she has to find a way to come up with extra cash.....fast! So Dayna decides she'll try to collect the $15,000 reward for information on the hit-and-run murder of a young woman named Haley Joseph.
Dayna realizes that she and her friends were in the vicinity of the incident, and actually got a glimpse of a speeding car. This is the start of Dayna's convoluted - and hilarious - investigation.
Dayna's friends - Sienna, Emme, and Omari - help with her inquiries. Sienna is a fashionista who's adept at hovering near celebrities when paparazzi are around, so she can get into the pictures; Sienna hopes to have a reality show some day.
Emme likes to stay home in her roomful of computers, where she shops, plays online games, IMs people, and hacks into accounts; she's an identical twin to Toni Abrams - an Oscar-nominated actress who was People's most beautiful woman.
And Omari is a handsome, budding television star that Dayna has crushed on since high school; when the actor makes a mini-pass at Dayna, she (inadvertently) freaks out.....much to her regret.
Dayna also partners up with Aubrey S. Adams-Parker, a bicycle-riding ex-cop/private detective who wears a bright orange reflector suit.
While Dayna is trying to track down the hit-and-run driver who struck Haley, the cops are on the trail of a team of robbers nicknamed 'The Rack Pack' - who break into celebrities' homes and steal clothes, jewelry, and cash. Recently The Rack Pack targeted singer/rapper Kandy Wrapper and her basketball player boyfriend. Could their next target be Toni Abrams?
Dayna's quest to find the killer (and maybe romance) takes her all around Hollywood, including a consignment store, 'Clothes Encounters', where Haley worked;
an auto mechanic shop;
a movie premiere; a luxurious mansion; and the set of a TV show. Dayna also engages in break-ins, stake-outs, car chases, and foot pursuits - often in her Pink Panther stilettos.
To get the $15,000 reward, Dayna has to give her information to the police tip line, and her calls to the gum-snapping woman who monitors the line are very funny - especially since Dayna accuses one person after another of being Haley's killer.
Important secondary characters in the story include Haley's boyfriend - Victory; her co-workers - Betty, Natalie, and Marina; a Hollywood talent manager - Montgomery Rose; and Sienna's black, gay, male counterpart - 'Fab.'
The book has a refreshing angle on the cozy mystery genre because Dayna isn't trying to outsmart and outmaneuver the cops. She just wants the reward money, and maybe to get a killer off the streets. I like this approach, and look forward to more of Dayna's adventures.
To use one of Dayna's favorite words, I smiled a kajillion times while I was reading this book. Highly recommended to fans of cozy mysteries.
Thanks to Netgalley, the author (Kellye Garrett), and the publisher (Midnight Ink) for a copy of the book.
In this 5th book in the 'Amos Decker' series, the detective re-investigates a multiple murder that occurred 13 years ago. The book can be read as a standalone.
*****
Former Burlington, Ohio homicide detective Amos Decker is now a consultant for the FBI. His partner is Agent Alex Jamison, whom he first met when she was a journalist, and who's now his (platonic) roommate.
Decker is assisted in his investigative work by a condition called hyperthymesia, which was caused by a massive head injury when he was a young football player. The hyperthymesia gives Decker the ability to recall - in vivid detail - everything he's ever seen, read, or experienced.
Decker's family was brutally killed four years ago, and he returns to Ohio every year to visit their graves. Decker and Jamison are standing in the Burlington cemetery when they're approached by a sick, shuffling man who identifies himself as Meryl Hawkins.
Decker remembers Hawkins, a perp he helped put away 13 years ago for killing businessman Don Richards, Richards' two young children, and a banker named David Katz, who happened to be in Richards' house.
Hawkins says he's been released from prison because he's terminally ill. He goes on to assert that he was wrongly convicted; that he has new information about the Richards and Katz murders; and that he wants Decker to investigate. Decker agrees to meet Hawkins later on, but the convict himself is killed before that can happen.
When he thinks back, Decker recalls that the Richards/Katz murder case was open and shut. Hawkins' fingerprint was found in the Richards' house; the murder gun was found in Hawkins' closet; and Hawkins DNA was found under the fingernails of one of the dead children. Because Hawkins was clearly the killer Decker didn't carefully consider other evidence, like autopsy results.
When Hawkins is murdered Decker becomes concerned that- as a newly minted homicide cop - he might have put away an innocent man. Thus Decker decides to re-investigate the four old murders as well as Hawkins recent death.
Decker's partner Alex Jamison has to leave for other FBI business, but Decker remains in Ohio to look into the killings. As a result Decker gets STRONG pushback from jealous and abrasive Burlington detectives, and is even put in jail for a few hours.
Decker carries on regardless. He manages to get a copy of the murder file; he visits the original Richards/Katz murder scene; he re-interviews family members; he speaks to witnesses; he looks for new evidence; and so on.
All this frightens someone, because more murders occur and Decker himself is almost shot. As a result, Decker's friend Melvin Mars - who was on death row before Decker intervened - comes to Ohio to protect Decker and assist with the inquiries.
Little by little Decker unveils an intricate, diabolical scheme that led to the murders over a decade ago as well as the current killings.
Decker, who's always been rather unemotional due to his head injury, has a lot of personal challenges in this book. His good friend has marriage problems and early onset Alzheimer's; he's angry at himself for a 'shoddy' original investigation; and he's in danger of losing his job because he disregarded FBI orders. This humanizes the detective and makes him a little more relatable.
I enjoyed the book but it's not the best entry in the Amos Decker series (IMO). For one thing, the first part of the book consists of Decker and his associates discussing the original crimes again and again, which gets repetitive and tedious. For another thing, I have a problem with the elaborate criminal scheme Decker uncovers, which requires too much suspension of disbelief (for me).
Still, this is a good series with interesting characters. Recommended to mystery fans.
Rating: 3 stars
William Dameron
Fortysomething William Dameron (Bill) had been married to his wife Katherine for twenty years when she confronted him in a Walmart parking lot. "Just park the car now Bill," she said. "I have to ask you this, or I'm afraid I never will. Are you gay?"
"I don't want to be", Bill replied. And his deeply held secret was finally out in the open.
In this memoir, Dameron shares the experience of coming out as a married father of two, a man who was devoted to his family, but unable to go on living a lie.
*****
Katherine probably 'had a feeling' Bill was gay for years. During a rocky time in their relationship, when the couple went to a marriage counselor, Katherine mentioned, "Sex has been a semiannual event for years, Bill. You know I need you to initiate it." In response, Bill said "Remember that night, two weeks ago when I asked you", though Bill knew he had purposely chosen a night when Katherine was too tired.
Bill's sexual preference became more obvious shortly before he came out, when he developed a 'man crush' on a handsome, heterosexual, married co-worker named Enzo. Bill recalls that he and Enzo would go out for drinks and tell jokes and "Enzo offered up his friendship readily, in a way I had never experienced with a man before." When Bill made one too many comments about Enzo to Katherine, she shrewdly observed, "Another story about Enzo. You're so infatuated with him."
The couple's daughters, Sophie and Marisa, may have sensed something as well. Bill was trying on shirt after shirt for a boys night out with Enzo, when Marisa noted, "Aw, Dad's got a bromance going on".....an observation Bill hotly denied.
After becoming friends with Enzo Bill also became a gym rat, adding muscles and pounds to his previously slim frame - in hopes his pal would notice. To assist his bulking up Bill used illegal steroids, secretly injecting himself in the basement.
Katherine's discovery of Bill's hidden stash of drugs led to an ugly scene in which Katherine, Sophie, and Marisa ALL confronted him, horrified and disappointed.
All this may have led to Katherine's 'gay' question in the Walmart parking lot, and Bill's admission - after which the couple separated and divorced.
This was hard on Bill, who felt ashamed about the fraud he'd perpetrated on his family, especially Katherine - who was unmoored and deeply hurt.
*****
Bill knew he was gay from an early age, but growing up in conservative North Carolina - with a Catholic mother who disdained homosexuals - made him deny his essential self.
Bill's mother sensed his leanings, and would say things like, "Don't put your hands on your hips like that. It look effeminate; Those flip-flops make you look effeminate." Eventually, when Bill's mom feared her teenage son might come out as gay, she said: "It's disgusting is what it is. There is nothing natural about it. Let's pray." And Bill's mother repeated this sort of thing on a regular basis.
Bill as a young man
Bill was well and truly scared. He writes: "Fear of eternal damnation, the fear of ridicule, the fear of being labeled a faggot and being beaten to a bloody pulp as I had seen happen to classmates....had created a fear and internal homophobia so great that it eclipsed all others."
Seeing his brothers happy with their girlfriends, Bill saw redemption, a way forward. So, after a few aborted experiences with boys, Bill started seeing Katherine, and when Bill was 23 and Katherine was 22 they married.
The union wasn't always easy, however, in part because Katherine had issues of her own: she was an adoptee, and fretted about being given up by her birth mother; she couldn't bear Bill coming home a few minutes late, let alone going away for a business trip or training; she thought their house was haunted by spirits; she developed a mysterious illness - with pains in her joints and shortness of breath - that required a hospital stay; and more.
Was any of this related to a subconscious inkling of Bill's secret? Who knows. But Katherine's referring to a gay male nurse as a faggot may have been a hint.
When Bill and Katherine separated, Katherine moved to Virginia with Sophie and Marisa, and Bill remained in Massachusetts, where the family had been living. Bill's coming out was a step by step process. He came out to family and friends; made new gay friends; went for counseling; got professional therapy; attended support groups; began dating; etc.
Bill rented a basement apartment in this house from two lesbians, Linda and Debra, who became his very good friends.
Bill feared he'd never find love, and had some hiccups on the way to this hoped for goal. At length Bill met a dreamboat named Paul, and their courtship was touching and a bit fraught....like a teenage romance. 😊
Bill (right) and Paul
Meanwhile, Bill felt guilty about the suffering he'd inflicted on Katherine. He admits, "I took what was not mine. Katherine's love, trust, and hope were her most valuable assets, and I squandered them." This is perhaps the most unfair thing about a 'beard marriage', the damage it inflicts on the unknowing partner.
Though the marriage was over, Bill wanted to remain close to Sophie and Marisa. Thus he traveled south for holidays and flew down once or twice a month to spend time with the girls. He remembers, "I tried to cram hundreds of hours into a precious forty-eight-hour window."
Bill with his daughters, Marisa (left) and Sophie
Bill writes a great deal about his family: his philandering father who ran off with another woman; his affection for Katherine, and their troubled marriage; raising his daughters Marisa and Sophie through the years; the family's beloved dog Maggie; his three brothers - one of whom never came to terms with Bill's homosexuality; his mother's eventual acceptance of his sexual preference; and more.
In the end, Bill's mother told him: "I was wrong. Being gay is normal, a part of your genetic legacy. Bill, can you ever forgive me?" Bill takes this opportunity to discuss forgiveness, and how his entire family "was learning to walk the long, rocky road of forgiveness."
Though much has changed for gay people over the years, Bill acknowledges that he still sometimes lies, "to strangers, acquaintances, and people I've just met, because the world is a brutal place for queer people. There are times when safety trumps honesty."
This is an inspirational story with a happily ever after. Still, Bill pleads, "We are not the first generation of queer people who have found themselves trapped in a straight marriage, but please God, let us be the last." Fingers crossed.
Bill (left) and Paul
All people - both LGBTQ and straight - can learn something from Bill's story.
Thanks to Netgalley, the author (William Dameron), and the publisher (Little A) for a copy of the book.
Rating: 4 stars
