Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review on the Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tour for HER EVERY MOVE by Kelly Irvin.
Below you will find a book synopsis, my book review, and excerpt from the book, the author’s bio and social media links and a Rafflecopter giveaway. Good luck and enjoy!
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Book Synopsis
He’s a cop trying to stop a serial bomber. And she’ll stop at nothing to clear her own name.
When a deadly bomb goes off during a climate change debate, librarian and event coordinator Jackie Santoro becomes the prime suspect. Her motive, according to Detective Avery Wick: to avenge the suicide of her prominent father, who was accused of crimes by a city councilman attending the event.
Though Avery has doubts about Jackie’s guilt, he can’t exonerate her even after an extremist group takes responsibility for the bombing and continues to attack San Antonio’s treasured public spaces.
As Jackie tries to hold her shattered family together, she has no choice but to proceed with plans for the Caterina Ball, the library system’s biggest annual fundraiser. But she also fears the event provides the perfect opportunity for the bomber to strike again.
Despite their mistrust, Jackie and Avery join forces to unmask the truth—before the death toll mounts even higher.
Genre: Suspense Published by: Thomas Nelson Publication Date: February 9, 2021 Number of Pages: 352 ISBN: 0785231900 (ISBN13: 9780785231905)
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My Book Review
RATING: 4.5 out of 5 Stars
HER EVERY MOVE by Kelly Irvin is an edge-of-your-seat Christian romantic suspense by a new to me author that I could not put down.
A bomb goes off at a library sponsored climate change debate in San Antonio.
Jackie Santoro, librarian and event coordinator loses her best friend in the bombing and yet still becomes a prime suspect due to her family’s past. Detective Avery Wick has doubts about Jackie’s guilt, but he also cannot exonerate her.
As the bombings continue around the city, Jackie is forced to continue with the plans for the annual Caterina Ball which funds the cities’ libraries for the year. Avery and Jackie know this event could be the next target for the bomber and they must work together to unmask the bomber before the death toll rises even further.
I was completely wrapped up in the chase for the bomber. Ms. Irvin’s pacing and plot development kept me on the edge-of-my-seat as each twist and new suspect emerged. While the bomber was on my list of suspects, the ending was still handled well and was satisfying. Avery’s handling of his long-time friend’s mental health decline added not just suspense, but also empathy to the story.
I loved that the protagonist, Jackie Santoro is a librarian and all the references to her life-long love of books and libraries. She is a strong heroine protagonist who follows her beliefs and feelings in her personal life as well as her professional one. Avery Wick is a detective, who while hardened by his years of seeing the worst of humanity on his job still has empathy for others. Their relationship evolves over the investigation and chase for the bomber at a realistic pace. The secondary characters are fully fleshed and add to the depth of the story without being just placeholders.
This is a Christian romantic suspense so there are no sex scenes in this romance, but the romance between Jackie and Avery grows realistically throughout. This book did have more inclusion of religious beliefs and prayer than other Christian romantic suspense books I have read, but the inclusions are not gratuitous.
I recommend this book for an exciting romantic suspense read and I will be checking out more of this new-to-me author’s work.
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Excerpt
A steady stream of patrons stood and edged toward the center aisle. A low murmur swelled to the sound of hundreds of people all talking at once. Soon they’d be in front of Jackie, impeding her progress from the parking garage and on the narrow, one-way downtown streets of San Antonio.
“Great job, Jackie. Looks like your boss was wrong.” Sandoval’s constituent services director, Tony Guerra, sauntered up the aisle toward her. “Climate change opponents can coexist amicably in the same space. And so can city manager and city council staff.”
“Thanks, but it took a whole host of partners to make this happen. And it’s not over yet.” Jackie stuck her hand on the door lever that would release her to the Tobin’s massive lobby.
She liked Tony, which was a good thing since he’d asked Estrella to marry him. However, he wore his political ambitions like an obnoxious neon-pink tie.
“I have to go. I want to make sure there are no last-minute snags with the reception. Then it’s back to fine-tuning the altars for the Catrina Ball. It’s only a week away, and I’m behind because of the debate.”
“You never let up, do you? Are we still on for the Spurs game tomorrow—”
A powerful force knocked Jackie from her feet.
Her skull banged on the hardwood floor.
Sharp projectiles pelted her face in a painful ping-ping.
What’s happening?
Estrella? Tony? Bella?
Muffled screams and even her own moaning seemed strangely distant. “Estrella? Tony? Bella?”
If they answered, Jackie couldn’t hear them. She dragged herself onto her hands and knees. Glass and sharp metal pierced both. She forced open burning eyes.
Heavy black smoke shrouded the hall. Metal and debris like deadly confetti showered her. She raised her arm to her forehead to protect her face from the remnants of folding chairs and electronics.
Warm blood dripped from her nose. The acrid taste of smoke and fear collected in her mouth. Her stomach heaved. Her pulse pounded so hard dizziness threatened to overcome her.
No, no, no. Do not pass out. People need help.
Shrieking alarms bellowed.
Water, like torrential rain, poured from above. Rain, inside? Her ricocheting thoughts made no sense. Jackie shook her head. Neither the smoke nor the clanging in her brain subsided.
Sprinkler system.
The smoke had triggered the sprinklers.
Where there’s smoke there’s fire.
The old cliché ran circles in her mind like a children’s nursery rhyme.
Estrella’s mama and papa would never forgive Jackie if something happened to their sweet daughter. Mercedes and Mateo always saw Jackie as the instigator of trouble. And they were usually right.
Ignoring pain and panic, she crawled forward. Sharp metal bit into her skin. Where were her shoes?
Finally she encountered a warm, writhing body. “Tony?”
“What happened?” He struggled to sit up. Blood poured from an open wound on his scalp, his nose, and a cut on his lip. “I have to get to Estrella and Diego.”
He might have yelled, but Jackie could barely make out the words. She leaned back on her haunches. “You’re hurt. Does anything feel broken?”
“No, but I can’t hear anything.” He wiped at his face. Blood streaked his once crisply starched white shirt. “Why can’t I hear?”
“It’ll pass. We have to get everyone out.”
With a groan, Tony leaned over and vomited on the floor. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “Okay, let’s go.”
“Everyone out. If you can walk on your own, evacuate.” One of the contract security guards hired for the debate loomed over them. “The bomb squad is on the way. Go, go.”
“We’re fine. We’ll help get the others out.”
“Negative. Get out, there could be more bombs.”
Bombs.
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Author Bio
Bestseller Kelly Irvin is the author of 19 books, including romantic suspense and Amish romance. Publishers Weekly called Closer Than She Knows “a briskly written thriller.”The Library Journal said of her novel Tell Her No Lies, “a complex web with enough twists and turns to keep even the most savvy romantic suspense readers guessing until the end.”
The two-time ACFW Carol Award finalist worked as a newspaper reporter for six years on the Texas-Mexico border. Those experiences fuel her romantic suspense novels set in Texas. A retired public relations professional, Kelly now writes fiction full-time. She lives with her husband professional photographer Tim Irvin in San Antonio. They have two children, three grandchildren, and two ornery cats.
Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review on the Partners in Crime Virtual Book Tour for the first cozy mystery in this fun amateur sleuth series featuring a female bartender as the protagonist – DEATH IN TRANQUILITY (The Bartender’s Guide to Murder Book #1) by Sharon Linnea.
Below you will find a book synopsis, my book review, an excerpt from the book, the author’s bio and social media links and a Rafflecopter giveaway. Good luck on the giveaway and enjoy!
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Book Synopsis
No one talks to the cops. Everyone talks to the bartender. And Avalon Nash is one hell of a bartender.
Avalon is on the run from her life in Los Angeles. Having a drink while waiting to change trains in the former Olympic town of Tranquility, New York, she discovers the freshly murdered bartender at MacTavish’s. A bartender herself, she’s offered the position with the warning he wasn’t the first MacTavish’s bartender to meet a violent end.
Avalon’s superpower is collecting people’s stories, and she’s soon embroiled in the lives of artists, politicians, ghost hunters and descendants of Old Hollywood.
Can Avalon outrun the ghosts of her past, catch the ghosts of Tranquility’s past and outsmart a murderer?
The first book in the Bartender’s Guide to Murder series offers chills, laughs, and 30 of the best drink recipes ever imbibed.
Genre: Mystery Published by: Arundel Publishing Publication Date: September 29th 2020 Number of Pages: 323 ISBN: 9781933608 (ISBN13: 9781933608150) Series: Bartender’s Guide to Murder, 1
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My Book Review
RATING: 4.5 out of 5 Stars
DEATH IN TRANQUILITY (The Bartender’s Guide to Murder Book #1) by Sharon Linnea is the first cozy mystery in this fun amateur sleuth series featuring a female bartender as the protagonist. Besides the introduction to a new small town full of interesting characters the reader also gets thirty drink recipes related to the story.
Avalon Nash is running from her life in Los Angeles and is presently waiting to change trains in the small former Olympic town of Tranquility, NY. As she waits, she is having a drink in a quaint bar called MacTavish’s. As the orders back up, Avalon tells the waitress she will look for the missing bartender only to find his dead body on a balcony off the back of the bar.
Avalon is a great bartender and collector of stories. She is offered the now open bartending position on a trial basis, delays her departure and soon finds herself embroiled in the lives and secrets of the residents of Tranquility. Avalon learns that this was the second bartender at MacTavish’s to be murdered. Can she help the local state police officer find a killer before she becomes the next bartender to die?
Avalon is a wonderful protagonist. Her talent as a bartender and her insight into people makes her an impressive amateur sleuth. Her love of old movies and the tie in with Old Hollywood in Tranquility added depth to the plot and added many more twists and red herrings. While a portion of Avalon’s personal story was revealed in this book, there is still so much more to learn about her and her secrets. All the secondary characters were interesting and quirky once you get them all sorted out and I am looking forward to seeing them again in future books. There is also a touch of paranormal which is yet to be fully explored.
Overall, an entertaining and well written start to a new series with a wonderful protagonist that I am looking forward to revisiting.
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Excerpt
Chapter 1
Death in the Afternoon
“Whenever you see the bartender, I’d like another drink,” I said, lifting my empty martini glass and tipping it to Marta, the waitress with teal hair.
“Everyone wants another drink,” she said, “but Joseph’s missing. I can’t find him. Anywhere.”
“How long has he been gone?” I asked.
“About ten minutes. It’s not like him. Joseph would never just go off without telling me.”
That’s when I should have done it. I should have put down forty bucks to cover my drink and my meal and left that magical, moody, dark-wood paneled Scottish bar and sauntered back across the street to the train station to continue on my way.
If I had, everything would be different.
Instead I nodded, grateful for a reason to stand up. A glance at my watch told me over half an hour remained until my connecting train chugged in across the street. I could do Marta a solid by finding the bartender and telling him drink orders were stacking up.
Travelling from Los Angeles to New York City by rail, I had taken the northern route, which required me to change trains in the storied village of Tranquility, New York. Once detrained, the posted schedule had informed me should I decide to bolt and head north for Montreal, I could leave within the hour. The train heading south for New York City, however, would not be along until 4 p.m.
Sometimes in life you think it’s about where you’re going, but it turns out to be about where you change trains.
It was an April afternoon; the colors on the trees and bushes were still painting from the watery palate of spring. Here and there, forsythia unfurled in insistent bursts of golden glory.
I needed a drink.
Tranquility has been famous for a long time. Best known for hosting the Winter Olympics back in 19-whatever, it was an eclectic blend of small village, arts community, ski mecca, gigantic hotels and Olympic facilities. Certainly there was somewhere a person could get lunch.
Perched on a hill across the street from the station sat a shiny, modern hotel of the upscale chain variety. Just down the road, father south, was a large, meandering, one-of-a-kind establishment called MacTavish’s Seaside Cottage. It looked nothing like a cottage, and, as we were inland, there were no seas. I doubted the existence of a MacTavish.
I headed over at once.
The place evoked a lost inn in Brigadoon. A square main building of a single story sent wings jutting off at various angles into the rolling hills beyond. Floor-to-ceiling windows made the lobby bright and airy. A full suit of armor stood guard over the check-in counter, while a sculpture of two downhill skiers whooshed under a skylight in the middle of the room.
Behind the statue was the Breezy, a sleek restaurant overlooking Lake Serenity (Lake Tranquility was in the next town over, go figure). The restaurant’s outdoor deck was packed with tourists on this balmy day, eating and holding tight to their napkins, lest they be lost to the murky depths.
Off to the right—huddled in the vast common area’s only dark corner—was a small door with a carved, hand-painted wooden sign which featured a large seagoing vessel plowing through tumultuous waves. That Ship Has Sailed, it read. A tavern name if I ever heard one.
Beyond the heavy door, down a short dark-wood hallway, in a tall room lined with chestnut paneling, I paused to let my eyes adjust to the change in light, atmosphere, and, possibly, century.
The bar was at a right angle as you entered, running the length of the wall. It was hand-carved and matched the back bar, which held 200 bottles, easily.
A bartender’s dream, or her undoing.
Two of the booths against the far wall were occupied, as were two of the center tables.
I sat at the bar.
Only one other person claimed a seat there during this low time between meal services. He was a tall gentleman with a square face, weathered skin, and dark hair pulled back into a ponytail. I felt his cold stare as I perused the menu trying to keep to myself. I finally gave up and stared back.
“Flying Crow,” he said. “Mohawk Clan.”
“Avalon,” I said. “Train changer.”
I went back to my menu, surprised to find oysters were a featured dish.
“Avalon?” he finally said. “That’s—”
“An odd name,” I answered. “I know. Flying Crow? You’re in a Scottish pub.”
“Ask him what Oswego means.” This was from the bartender, a lanky man with salt-and-pepper hair. “Oh, but place your order first.”
“Are the oysters good?” I asked.
“Oddly, yes. One of the best things on the menu. Us being seaside, and all.”
“All right, then. Oysters it is. And a really dry vodka martini, olives.”
“Pimento, jalapeño, or bleu cheese?”
“Ooh, bleu cheese, please.” I turned to Flying Crow. “So what does Oswego mean?”
“It means, ‘Nothing Here, Give It to the Crazy White Folks.’ Owego, on the other hand means, ‘Nothing Here Either.’”
“How about Otego? And Otsego and Otisco?”
His eyebrow raised. He was impressed by my knowledge of obscure town names in New York State. “They all mean, ‘We’re Just Messing with You Now.’”
“Hey,” I said, raising my newly delivered martini. “Thanks for coming clean.”
He raised his own glass of firewater in return.
“Coming clean?” asked the bartender, and he chuckled, then dropped his voice. “If he’s coming clean, his name is Lesley.”
“And you are?” I asked. He wasn’t wearing a name tag.
“Joseph.”
“Skål,” I said, raising my glass. “Glad I found That Ship Has Sailed.”
“That’s too much of a mouthful,” he said, flipping over the menu. “Everyone calls it the Battened Hatch.”
“But the Battened Hatch isn’t shorter. Still four syllables.”
“Fewer words,” said Joseph with a smile that included crinkles by his eyes. “Fewer capital letters over which to trip.”
As he spoke, the leaded door banged open and two men in chinos and shirtsleeves arrived, talking loudly to each other. The door swung again, just behind them, admitting a stream of ten more folks—both women and men, all clad in business casual. Some were more casual than others. One man with silvering hair actually wore a suit and tie; another, a white artist’s shirt, his blonde hair shoulder-length. The women’s garments, too, ran the gamut from tailored to flowing. One, of medium height, even wore a white blouse, navy blue skirt and jacket, finished with hose and pumps. And a priest’s collar.
“Conventioneers?” I asked Joseph. Even as I asked, I knew it didn’t make sense. No specific corporate culture was in evidence.
He laughed. “Nah. Conference people eat at the Blowy. Er, Breezy. Tranquility’s Chamber of Commerce meeting just let out.” His grey eyes danced. “They can never agree on anything, but their entertainment quotient is fairly high. And they drive each other to drink.”
Flying Crow Lesley shook his head.
Most of the new arrivals found tables in the center of the room. Seven of them scooted smaller tables together, others continued their conversations or arguments in pairs.
“Marta!” Joseph called, leaning through a door in the back wall beside the bar.
The curvy girl with the teal hair, nose and eyebrow rings and mega eye shadow clumped through. Her eyes widened when she saw the influx of patrons.
Joseph slid the grilled oysters with fennel butter in front of me. “Want anything else before the rush?” He indicated the well-stocked back bar.
“I’d better hold off. Just in case there’s a disaster and I end up having to drive the train.”
He nodded knowingly. “Good luck with that.”
I took out my phone, then re-pocketed it. I wanted a few more uncomplicated hours before re-entering the real world. Turning to my right, I found that Flying Crow had vanished. In his stead, several barstools down, sat a Scotsman in full regalia: kilt, Bonnie Prince Charlie jacket and a fly plaid. It was predominantly red with blue stripes.
Wow. Mohawk clan members, Scotsmen, and women priests in pantyhose. This was quite a town.
Joseph was looking at an order screen, and five drinks in different glasses were already lined up ready for Marta to deliver.
My phone buzzed. I checked caller i.d. Fought with myself. Answered.
Was grabbed by tentacles of the past.
When I looked up, filled with emotions I didn’t care to have, I decided I did need another drink; forget driving the train.
The line of waiting drink glasses was gone, as were Marta and Joseph.
I checked the time. I’d been in Underland for fifteen minutes, twenty at the most. It was just past three. I had maybe forty-five minutes before I should move on.
That was when Marta swung through the kitchen door, her head down to stave off the multiple calls from the center tables. She stood in front of me, punching information into the point of sale station, employing the NECTM—No Eye Contact Tactical Maneuver.
That’s when she told me Joseph was missing.
“Could he be in the restroom?”
“I asked Arthur when he came out, but he said there was nobody else.”
I nodded at Marta and started by going out through the front hall, to see if perhaps he’d met someone in the lobby. As I did a lap, I overheard a man at check-in ask, “Is it true the inn is haunted?”
“Do you want it to be?” asked the clerk, nonplussed.
But no sign of the bartender.
I swung back through into the woodsy-smelling darkness of the Battened Hatch, shook my head at the troubled waitress, then walked to the circular window in the door. The industrial kitchen was white and well-lit, and as large as it was, I could see straight through the shared kitchen to the Breezy. No sign of Joseph. I turned my attention back to the bar.
Beyond the bar, there was a hallway to the restrooms, and another wooden door that led outside. I looked back at Marta and nodded to the door.
“It doesn’t go anywhere,” she said. “It’s only a little smoker’s deck.”
I wondered if Joseph smoked, tobacco or otherwise. Certainly the arrival of most of a Chamber of Commerce would suggest it to me. I pushed on the wooden door. It seemed locked. I gave it one more try, and, though it didn’t open, it did budge a little bit.
This time I went at it with my full shoulder. There was a thud, and it wedged open enough that I could slip through.
It could hardly be called a deck. You couldn’t put a table—or even a lounge chair—out there.
Especially with the body taking up so much of the space.
It was Joseph. I knelt quickly and felt for a pulse at his neck, but it was clear he was inanimate. He was sitting up, although my pushing the door open had made him lean at an angle. I couldn’t tell if the look on his face was one of pain or surprise. There was some vomit beside him on the deck, and a rivulet down his chin. I felt embarrassed to be seeing him this way.
Crap. He was always nice to me. Well, during the half an hour I’d known him, he had been nice to me.
What was it with me discovering corpses? It was certainly a habit of which I had to break myself.
Meanwhile, what to do? Should I call in the priest? But she was within a group, and it would certainly start a panic. Call 911?
Yes, that would be good. That way they could decide to call the hospital or the police or both.
My phone was back in my purse.
And, you know what? I didn’t want the call to come from me. I was just passing through.
I pulled the door back open and walked to Marta behind the bar. “Call 911,” I said softly. “I found Joseph.”
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Author Bio
Sharon Linnéa wrote the bestselling Eden Series (Chasing Eden, Beyond Eden, Treasure of Eden and Plagues of Eden) with B.K. Sherer, as well as the standalone These Violent Delights, a movie murder series. She enjoyed working with Axel Avian on Colt Shore: Domino 29, a middle-grade spy thriller. She is also the author of Princess Ka’iulani: Hope of a Nation, Heart of a People about the last crown princess of Hawaii which won the prestigious Carter Woodson Award, and Raoul Wallenberg: the Man Who Stopped Death. She was a staff writer for five national magazines, a book editor at three publishers, and a celebrity ghost. She lives outside New York City with her family. In Orange County, she teaches The Book Inside You workshops with Thomas Mattingly.
Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review on the Partners in Crime Virtual Book Tour for UP THE CREEK (Culver Creek Book #1) by Alissa Grosso.
Below you will find a book synopsis, my book review, an excerpt from the book, an about the author section, the author’s social media links and a Rafflecopter giveaway. Good luck and enjoy!
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Book Synopsis
An unsolved murder. Disturbing dreams. A missing child.
Caitlin Walker hasn’t had a dream in nine years. But now nightmares torture her son Adam and awaken in Caitlin buried memories and a dark secret. Her husband Lance has a secret of his own, one that his son’s nightmares threaten to reveal.
In Culver Creek newly hired detective Sage Dorian works to unravel the small town’s notorious cold case, the grisly murder of a young girl.
How are Caitlin and Lance connected to the horrific crime? And how far will they go to make sure their secrets stay hidden? Find out in this riveting thriller.
Genre: Mystery Thriller Published by: Glitter Pigeon Press Publication Date: January 12, 2021 Number of Pages: 356 ISBN: 9781949852080 Series: Culver Creek Series, Book 1
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My Book Review
RATING: 3 out of 5 Stars
UP THE CREEK (Culver Creek Book #1) by Alissa Grosso is the start of a new crime fiction/mystery series. This introduction to the series intertwines past mysteries and crimes to the present lives of the three characters focused on in this story.
Detective Sage Dorian is recently hired by the Culver Creek PD and he has a specific reason for seeking employment in Culver City. He wants to work on the small town’s notorious cold case.
Caitlin and Lance Walker are a couple with secrets. Caitlin and now her young son, Adam have prophetic dreams of violent crimes. Lance has a nighttime secret of his own.
How is this couple connected to a horrific cold case?
The author does a good job of not dropping any threads of this intricate mystery in the past and present, but there are times I was confused because there are so many. I also felt there was a lot of set up with the Walker’s and their secrets which distracts from Sage, who I assume will be the main character in future books and makes the start of the book slow. I did not like that the Walker’s were married for so long with major secrets they did not share. That lack of communication from both did not feel realistic or believable. If you can overlook this, and get through the back story, the mystery does have a satisfying conclusion.
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Excerpt
Caitlin emerged from a black, dreamless sleep to screams. Adam’s tortured cries sounded almost otherworldly. They turned her blood to ice and made her heart race. She sat straight up, then bolted from bed, blinking sleep from her eyes as she raced toward the door, banging her shin on the dresser as she went. She yanked on the doorknob and almost toppled over when it didn’t yield as she expected. Goddammit. Lance had locked the door again.
She spared a glance toward the bed, but her husband wasn’t there. Instead he was standing, looking out the window. For a moment she thought she was mistaken. Were the screams coming from outside?
“Lance?” she asked.
He turned to her, but his eyes looked past her at some point on the wall.
“What’s going on?” he mumbled, barely awake.
“Adam’s having a nightmare,” she said.
“Again?” he asked. “Maybe we should just let him sleep it off.”
The screams had subsided now, but she could still hear her son’s whimpers from down the hall. Sleep it off? Could Lance really be that clueless? She unlocked the door and flung it open. It bounced almost silently off the rubber doorstopper, which didn’t really give her the dramatic exit she was hoping for.
She still couldn’t quite wrap her head around her husband just standing there looking out the window while Adam cried for them. Usually Lance was the one who woke up first. Maybe he had already gone to comfort Adam and came back to their bedroom by the time she awoke. He seemed so out of it, though. Well, that’s what a lack of sleep could do to a person.
Adam sat on his bed in a nest of tangled sheets. His face was damp with tears and sweat, his dark hair plastered to his forehead. The hippo nightlight cast large, ominous shadows when she stepped into his room. He looked up with a start, then relaxed when he saw it was her.
She sat down beside him and pulled his small body to her, wrapping her arms around him and rocking him gently back and forth. The tears subsided, but he still felt tense.
“Mommy, I’m scared of the bad boy,” he said. “The bad boy’s going to hurt me.”
“Nobody’s going to hurt you,” she assured him. “You’re safe. It was just a dream. Look, you’re safe in your bedroom.”
At this, Adam pulled away from her a little to study the dimly lit bedroom. Maybe they should get a different nightlight. She had never realized how spooky that hippo light made everything look.
“There were trees,” Adam said, “and a river. She was playing in the river.”
Caitlin stiffened. Adam noticed it and looked up at her. She smiled at him.
“It was just a dream,” she said, as much to reassure herself as him. “It wasn’t real.”
There were lots of rivers out there, and wasn’t Adam just watching a cartoon show with cute animals that had to get across a river? That was probably where that detail came from. Plus, she reminded herself, it hadn’t been a river. It had been a creek. She wasn’t sure Adam knew the difference between a river and a creek, though. But a little girl playing in a river? No, wait, was that what he had said? He said only “she.” For all Caitlin knew, this she could have been a girl river otter. Maybe he had been having a cute dream about river creatures.
And a “bad boy,” she reminded herself. She remembered his bloodcurdling screams. There was nothing cute about the dream he had. Still, she clung to the “bad boy” detail. Was he talking about a child? If so, then the river was just a coincidence. She wanted to ask him more about the bad boy, but this was the worst thing she could do. He was already starting to calm down, starting to forget the details of his nightmare. She couldn’t go dredging things back up again.
“Mommy, can I sleep in your room?” Adam asked.
#
Lance was fully awake and in bed when Caitlin returned with Adam in her arms.
“Hey there, champ,” Lance said. “Have a bad dream?”
“Daddy, he hurt her,” Adam said. “He hurt her head. She was bleeding.”
Her son’s tiny body stiffened again in Caitlin’s arms, and she gave Lance an exasperated look as she set Adam down in the middle of the bed.
“We’d already gotten past that,” she said in a whispered hiss.
“Obviously,” Lance said with a roll of his eyes, “which is why he’s sleeping in our bed. Again.”
She slid into the bed beside Adam and adjusted the covers, ignoring her husband. She petted Adam’s head and made soft, soothing noises.
“Remember, that wasn’t real, just make believe, like a movie.” She didn’t want him to get himself worked up again talking about the dream, but it wasn’t just that. She didn’t want to hear any more details from the nightmare because the bit about the bad boy hurting the girl’s head and the blood felt a touch too familiar.
She stroked his face, and his eyelids slowly drooped closed. He looked so calm and peaceful when he slept.
“I thought we said we weren’t going to do this anymore,” Lance said. Even whispering, his voice was too loud. She held her finger to her lips. He continued more quietly, “I’m just saying, I think it would be better for him if he sleeps in his own bed.”
“It’s already after three,” she said. “It’s only for a few hours.”
“That’s not the point,” Lance said. “He’s nearly five years old. We can’t keep babying him.”
It was like the school argument all over again, and Caitlin didn’t want to get into it. Not now. She was still tired and groggy and needed more sleep.
“I want to get him a new nightlight,” she said to change the subject. “The one he has makes these creepy shadows.”
“A new nightlight,” Lance repeated in a skeptical voice. “Sure, that will solve everything.”
“The important thing,” she said, “is that we have to remind him that his dreams are not real. That they’re make believe. We have to be united on this.”
Lance made a dismissive noise and lay back down on his pillow, turning his body away from her and Adam. He muttered something, but his voice was muffled by the pillow.
“Lance, this is important,” she said. “We have to make it clear that his dreams are not real. He has to know they aren’t true.”
He sighed. “What kind of moron do you think I am? Do you really think I’m going to start telling him his dreams about boogeymen are real?” He squirmed around and pulled the covers up in an attempt to get comfortable. She thought he was done, but he stopped shifting around long enough to add, “It’s not exactly like you’re the foremost expert in dreams.”
***
About the Author
Alissa Grosso is the author of several books for adults and teens. Originally from New Jersey, she now resides in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
Today is my turn on the Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tour for the new Christian Romantic Suspense LETHAL INTENT by Cara C. Putnam. This is a legal/medical romantic suspense mash-up that kept me turning the pages.
Below you will find a book synopsis, my book review, an excerpt from the book, the author’s bio and social media links and a Rafflecopter giveaway. Enjoy!
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Book Synopsis
If they expected silence, they hired the wrong woman.
Caroline Bragg’s life has never been better. She and Brandon Lancaster are taking their relationship to the next level, and she has a new dream job as legal counsel for Praecursoria—a research lab that is making waves with its cutting-edge genetic therapies. The company’s leukemia treatments even promise to save desperately sick kids—kids like eleven-year-old Bethany, a critically ill foster child at Brandon’s foster home.
When Caroline’s enthusiastic boss wants to enroll Bethany in experimental trials prematurely, Caroline objects, putting her at odds with her colleagues. They claim the only goal at Praecursoria is to save lives. But does someone have another agenda?
Brandon faces his own crisis. As laws governing foster homes shift, he’s on the brink of losing the group home he’s worked so hard to build. When Caroline learns he’s a Praecursoria investor, it becomes legally impossible to confide in him. Will the secrets she keeps become a wedge that separates them forever? And can she save Bethany from the very treatments designed to heal her?
This latest romantic legal thriller by bestseller Cara Putman shines a light on the shadowy world of scientific secrets and corporate vendettas—and the ethical dilemmas that plague the place where science and commerce meet.
Genre: Mystery/Suspense Published by: Thomas Nelson Publication Date: January 12, 2021 Number of Pages: 336 ISBN: 0785233318 (ISBN13: 9780785233312)
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My Book Review:
RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars
LETHAL INTENT by Cara C. Putnam is a new legal/medical romantic suspense mash-up. This book is a listed as a Christian romantic suspense, but it has only subtle references to belief and prayers and the romance subplot is what I call a cozy romance due to the fact that there are no sex scenes. The story is easily read as a standalone and only loosely tied to other female heroines in Ms. Putnam’s legal romantic suspense books.
Caroline Bragg has landed a new job as the legal counsel for a new medical start-up, Praecursoria. They are in FDA human testing for a cutting-edge genetic therapy, CAR T to save children with leukemia which has reoccurred or not responding to previous treatments. While learning the new technology for her job, people tied to the company begin to die in what are believed to be accidents, but Caroline receives an email from one of the dead that has her starting to investigate and places her in the sights of a killer who refuses to be stopped.
Brandon Lancaster is facing his own problems when the government changes the laws regarding is group foster home, Almost Home. As he works to come up with a new plan, his feelings for Caroline become deeper, but she has learned he is a major investor in Praecursoria and appears to be backing away. When Brandon needs Caroline the most will the secrets she keeps break them apart?
I loved the suspense in this story and was riveted to the pages. The legal questions of experimental technology, the ethics of having a loved one be a major investor in a company you work for and the large amount of money and potential profit involved in this type of company. The technology and legal aspects of the story were clearly written and did not slow the story. The twists and turns kept me guessing throughout.
Caroline and Brandon were both strong, intelligent and committed main characters and Ms. Putnam brought the intersections of their different problems together nicely. This is a couple just starting to commit and the romance is a cozy romance with no sex scenes even behind closed doors. I also enjoyed the scenes where Caroline turned to her friends for support and advice, who are characters from other books.
I highly recommend this Christian romantic suspense and author!
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Excerpt
Caroline shifted in the high-backed chair. The massive conference room table made her feel more petite than usual. Quentin Jackson, the man propelling Praecursoria through its rapid growth, vibrated with energy as he studied her.
“We are on the cusp of amazing developments and a transition from the lab to trials. We have a few CAR T-cell therapies in early stages now with more in our pipeline.”
She racked her mind for the importance of T cells, and he gave a hearty laugh.
“Don’t worry if the science overwhelms you. We’ll have you up to speed in no time. All you need to know right now is that T cells are one of the two cells that make up white blood cells. The treatments we’re working on could be the difference between life and death for young cancer patients. We need your legal expertise and quick mind to synthesize the science with the map to market.”
“I’ve overseen several court trials related to patents, which should help with that process.” It had been an unforeseen aspect of her days clerking for Judge Loren. She swallowed against the lump in her throat that still welled up when she thought about his untimely death from pneumonia. A month ago she couldn’t imagine interviewing for a job somewhere else, even if a part of her knew that she should stretch her wings.
“When can you start? Today?”
She felt rooted to the chair. Everything was moving so fast. Could she really transition her experience managing clerks for a judge into managing patents and contracts for a start-up? While Praecursoria had been around for a decade as a cancer research lab, about eighteen months ago Quentin sold off its lucrative genetic testing branch to focus exclusively on the development of cutting-edge CAR T-cell therapies. Starting over that way was a bold if risky move.
She lifted her chin and forced a smile that didn’t waver. “If that’s what you need. First we have a few details to work out.”
He laughed. “I like the way you tackle issues head-on. That will be key in this role. I know how to steer the ship, and my chief scientist can navigate the research, but you’ll keep us on the legal straight and narrow.” He tapped his pen against the legal pad in front of him. Then he picked up her résumé and named a salary that pressed her against the chair. “There will be performance bonuses tied to the successful conclusion of trials. We want to look into stock options as well. That will be one of your assignments in conjunction with HR.” He slapped his hands on the table and she jumped. “My enthusiasm gets away from me sometimes.” He shrugged but never wavered as he examined her. “Let’s start with a field trip. The best way for you to understand why we’re doing this work and research is to show you.”
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Author Bio
Cara Putman is the author of more than twenty-five legal thrillers, historical romances, and romantic suspense novels. She has won or been a finalist for honors including the ACFW Book of the Year and the Christian Retailing’s BEST Award. Cara graduated high school at sixteen, college at twenty, completed her law degree at twenty-seven, and recently received her MBA. She is a practicing attorney, teaches undergraduate and graduate law courses at a Big Ten business school, and is a homeschooling mom of four. She lives with her husband and children in Indiana.
Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review on the Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tour for THE THINGS THAT LAST FOREVER (A Vic Lenoski Mystery Book #3) by Peter W.J. Hayes. This is the first book in the series I have read and I was pulled immediately into the story. This book is easily read as a standalone.
Below you will find a book synopsis, my book review, an excerpt from the book, the author’s bio and social media links and a Rafflecopter giveaway. Good luck on the Rafflecopter giveaway and enjoy!
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Book Synopsis
After a house fire hospitalizes his partner and forces him onto medical leave, Pittsburgh Bureau of Police detective Vic Lenoski starts a desperate search for the woman who set the blaze. She is the one person who knows what happened to his missing teenage daughter, but as a fugitive, she’s disappeared so thoroughly no one can find her.
Risking his job and the wrath of the district attorney, Vic resorts to bargaining with criminal suspects for new leads, many of which point to North Dakota. He flies there, only to discover he is far from everything he knows, and his long-cherished definitions of good and bad are fading as quickly as his leads. His only chance is one last audacious roll of the dice.
Can he stay alive long enough to discover the whereabouts of his daughter and rebuild his life? Or is everything from his past lost forever?
Genre: Mystery: Police Procedural Published by: Level Best Books Publication Date: August 1, 2020 Number of Pages: 294 ISBN: 978-1-947915-56-5 Series: A Vic Lenoski Mystery; Pittsburgh Trilogy #3 || Each is a Stand Alone Mystery Purchase Links:Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads
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My Book Review
RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars
THE THINGS THAT LAST FOREVER (A Vic Lenoski Mystery Book #3) by Peter W.J. Hayes is a mystery that is the third in the series, but I had no difficulty reading it as a standalone. The story and characters pull you in immediately.
Pittsburgh Bureau of Police Detective Vic Lenoski is back. He is on medical leave after saving his partner from a burning building rather than apprehending the woman who put her there and has information on his missing daughter. She disappeared from Pittsburgh and all the info and clues he can gather lead him to North Dakota.
This mystery is full of unexpected, explosive twists that had me not only turning the pages as quickly as I could read them, but my emotions were fully engaged also. Vic has the help of old and new friends that help him through the morass of corporate and political corruption and the social issues around the native people of the Dakotas while he himself is dealing with his own moral compass. The ending was both a surprise and extremely satisfying.
I highly recommend this mystery and author.
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Excerpt
Chapter 1
Sometimes you walk into a room and what’s inside changes your life forever. That sense stopped Vic just inside the doorway. A woman with skin the color of dark amber lay on the only bed, her bandaged arms shockingly white among the shadows. She was reflected in a large window in the far wall, the outside sky as black and still as the inside of a tomb. He smelled disinfectant and blood. Numbers and graph lines flared on grey-eyed medical monitors. Somewhere in the vast empty spaces of the hospital a voice echoed.
He’d never visited a burn ward.
Never had a partner so close to death.
Never thought a room could seem as hollow as he felt inside.
The feeling was so disembodying that when he reached the bed and looked into the woman’s face, he half expected to see himself. But it was Liz, her forehead and knobby cheekbones smeared with ointment, eyebrows and eyelashes burned away. A bandage covered her left earlobe where her favorite earring, a small gold star, usually sat. It seemed like every breath she took pained her.
He wanted to take her hand but the bandages made it impossible. “Liz,” he said softly, her name almost lost among the beeps and clicks of the monitors. Liquid dripped into a tangle of IV tubes at the back of her fist.
Her eyelids fluttered.
“Liz. Doctor told me I could talk to you.”
Her eyes opened. He watched her pupils widen and narrow as they absorbed the distance to the ceiling and distinguished shadows from feeble light.
“Vic?” A hoarse whisper.
“I’m here.”
She turned her face to him. “You got me out.”
Relief rose in Vic’s throat. “Yeah. But the house didn’t make it.”
“Cora Stills?”
Vic squeezed his eyelids shut and rocked on his heels. He didn’t know where to start. Cora Stills. The one person who knew something—anything—about his missing teenage daughter. Liz on her way to arrest her. Instead, Liz, handcuffed to a radiator pipe as flames lathered and stormed through Cora’s house. Cora’s burned-out car found two days later on a crumbling stone dock next to a deserted warehouse, the Allegheny River emptying westward.
Cora, alive and moving through that tomb of darkness outside the window. Free.
“Vic…” Liz said something more but he couldn’t make it out.
He bent closer.
She forced her words from somewhere deep inside, and as she spoke, he knew this was what she saved through all the fear and pain to tell him. “Someone told Cora I was coming.”
***
Author Bio
Peter W. J. Hayes worked as a journalist, advertising copywriter and marketing executive before turning to mystery and crime writing. He is the author of the Silver Falchion-nominated Pittsburgh trilogy, a police procedural series, and is a Derringer-nominated author of more than a dozen short stories. His work has appeared in Black Cat Mystery Magazine, Mystery Weekly, Pulp Modern and various anthologies, including two Malice Domestic collections and The Best New England Crime Stories. He is also a past nominee for the Crime Writers Association (CWA) Debut Dagger Award.
Today is my turn on this Partners In Crime Book Tour. I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for A MURDER IS FOREVER by Rob Bates.
Below you will find a book synopsis, my book review, an excerpt from the book, the author’s bio and social media links and a Rafflecopter giveaway. Good luck on the Rafflecopter giveaway and enjoy!
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Book Synopsis
Max Rosen always said the diamond business isn’t about sorting the gems, it’s about sorting the people. His daughter Mimi is about to learn that some people, like some diamonds, can be seriously flawed.
After Mimi’s diamond-dealer cousin Yosef is murdered–seemingly for his $4 million pink diamond–Mimi finds herself in the middle of a massive conspiracy, where she doesn’t know who to trust, or what to believe. Now she must find out the truth about both the diamond and her cousin, before whoever killed Yosef, gets her.
Genre: Mystery Published by: Camel Press Publication Date: October 13th 2020 Number of Pages: 281 ISBN: 1603812229 (ISBN13: 9781603812221) Series: The Diamond District Mystery Series
A MURDER IS FOREVER (The Diamond District Mystery Series Book #1) by Rob Bates is the first book in a new amateur sleuth cozy mystery series set in New York City’s Diamond District.
Mimi Rosen is an unemployed journalist with no prospects and out of money. She reluctantly goes to work doing the books for her father’s gem company in the Diamond District of NYC.
Diamond dealing can be a dangerous profession and when Mimi’s cousin, Yosef is murdered it is assumed to be a gang related robbery, but the last 24 hours of Yosef’s life, lead Mimi to believe there is something more going on that all revolves around a large pink diamond her cousin was trying to sell.
As Mimi learns more about the diamond industry, she believes her cousin was involved in a scandal that involves bribery and murder all related to the pink diamond. Another death considered a suicide and a personal attack on Mimi’s life make Mimi more determined than ever to solve Josef’s murder no matter the consequences.
This mystery was well paced with enough twists and red herrings to keep me turning the pages and an interesting setting in NYC’s Diamond District. This book immerses the reader in the close familial diamond business and the orthodox Jewish culture in the area without slowing the pace in the mystery itself. Mimi is an interesting main character that I had mixed feeling about. On the surface, you feel sympathy for her situation, but as you read on you realize that she brought many of her personal problems on herself. As she deals with the murder, she once again is jumping into a situation she is not prepared to handle. All the secondary characters were interesting, but some seemed more caricature than realistic.
Overall, an entertaining and interesting mystery.
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Excerpt
A MURDER IS FOREVER
By Rob Bates
CHAPTER ONE
As Mimi Rosen exited the subway and looked out on the Diamond District, she remembered the words of her therapist: “This won’t last forever.”
She sure hoped so. She had been working on Forty-Seventh Street for two months and was already pretty tired of it.
To outsiders, “The Diamond District” sounded glamorous, like a street awash in glitter. To Mimi, who had spent her life around New York, Forty-Seventh Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues was a crowded, dirty eyesore of a block. The sidewalk was covered not with glitz, but with newspaper boxes, cigarettes, stacks of garbage bags, and, of course, lots of people.
Dozens of jewelry stores lined the street, all vying for attention, with red neon signs proclaiming “we buy gold” or “50 percent off.” Their windows boasted the requisite rows of glittery rings, and Mimi would sometimes see tourists ogling them, their eyes wide. She hated how the stores crammed so many gems in each display, until they all ran together like a mess of kids’ toys. For all its feints toward elegance, Forty-Seventh Street came off as the world’s sparkliest flea market.
Mimi knew the real action in the Diamond District was hidden from pedestrians, because it took place upstairs. There, in the nondescript grey and brown buildings that stood over the stores, billions in gems were bought, sold, traded, stored, cut, appraised, lost, found, and argued over. The upstairs wholesalers comprised the heart of the U.S. gem business; if someone bought a diamond anywhere in America, it had likely passed through Forty-Seventh Street.
Mimi’s father Max had spent his entire life as part of the small tight-knit diamond dealer community. It was a business based on who you knew—and even more, who you trusted. “This business isn’t about sorting the diamonds,” Max always said. “It’s about sorting the people.” Mimi would marvel how traders would seal million-dollar deals on handshakes, without a contract or lawyer in sight.
It helped that Forty-Seventh Street was comprised mostly of family businesses, owned by people from a narrow range of ethnic groups. Most—like Mimi’s father—were Orthodox, or religious, Jews. (“We’re the only people crazy enough to be in this industry,” as Max put it.) The Street was also home to a considerable contingent of Hasidic Jews, who were even more religious and identifiable by their black top hats and long flowing overcoats. Mimi once joked that Forty-Seventh Street was so diverse, it ran the gamut from Orthodox to ultra-Orthodox.
Now Mimi, while decidedly secular, was part of it all. Working for her father’s diamond company was not something she wanted to do, not something she ever dreamed she would do. Yet, here she was.
She had little choice. She had not worked full-time since being laid off from her editing job a year ago. She was already in debt from her divorce, which had cost more than her wedding, and netted little alimony. “That’s what happens when you divorce a lawyer,” said her shrink.
Six months after she lost her job, Mimi first asked her father for money. He happily leant it to her, though he added he wasn’t exactly Rockefeller. It was after her third request—accompanied, like the others, by heartfelt vows to pay him back—that he asked her to be the bookkeeper at his company. “I know you hate borrowing from me,” he told her. “This way, it isn’t charity. Besides, it’ll be nice having you around.”
Mimi protested she could barely keep track of her own finances. Her father reminded her that she got an A in accounting in high school. Which apparently qualified her to do the books at Max Rosen Diamond Company.
“We have new software, it makes it easy,” Max said. “Your mother, may she rest in peace, did it for years.”
Mimi put him off. She had a profession, and it wasn’t her mother’s.
Mimi was a journalist. She had worked at a newspaper for nine years, and a website for five. She was addicted to the thrill of the chase, the pump of adrenaline when she uncovered a hot story or piece of previously hidden info. There is no better sound to a reporter’s ears than someone sputtering, “How did you find that out?”
“It’s the perfect job for you,” her father once said. “You’re a professional nosy person.”
She loved journalism for a deeper reason, which she rarely admitted to her cynical reporter friends: She wanted to make a difference. As a girl, she was haunted by the stories they told in religious school, how Jews were killed in concentration camps while the world turned its head. Growing up, she devoured All the President’s Men and idolized pioneering female muckrakers like Nellie Bly.
Being a journalist was the only thing Mimi ever wanted to do, the only thing she knew how to do. She longed to do it again.
Which is why, she told her therapist, she would tell her father no.
Dr. Asner said she understood, in that soft melancholy coo common to all therapists. Then she crept forward on her chair.
“Maybe you should take your father up on this. He’s really throwing you a lifeline. You keep telling me how bad the editorial job market is.” She squinted and her glasses inched up her nose. “Sometimes people adjust their dreams. Put them on hold.”
Mimi felt the blood drain from her face. In her darker moments—and she had quite a few after her layoff—she had considered leaving journalism and doing something else, though she had no idea what that would be. Mimi always believed that giving up her lifelong passion would be tantamount to surrender.
Dr. Asner must have sensed her reaction, because she quickly backtracked.
“You can continue to look for a journalism job,” she said. “Who knows? Maybe working in the Diamond District will give you something to write about. Besides,”— here, her voice gained an edge—“you need the money.” That was driven home at the end of the forty-five minutes, when Dr. Asner announced that she couldn’t see Mimi for any more sessions, since Mimi hadn’t paid her for the last three.
By that point, Mimi didn’t know whether to argue, burst into tears, or wave a white flag and admit the world had won.
It was a cold February morning as Mimi walked down Forty-Seventh Street to her father’s office, following an hour-plus commute from New Jersey that included a car, a bus, and a subway. With her piercing hazel eyes, glossy brown hair, and closely set features, Mimi was frequently told she was pretty, though she never quite believed it. She had just gotten her hair cut short to commemorate her thirty-eighth birthday, hoping for a more “mature” look. She had always been self-conscious about her height; she was five foot four and tried to walk taller. She was wearing a navy dress that she’d snagged for a good price on eBay; it was professional enough to please her father, who wanted everyone to look nice in the office, without being so nice that she was wasting one of her few good outfits. She was bundled up with multiple layers and a heavy coat—to protect against the winter chill, as well as the madness around her.
Even though it was before 9 AM, Forty-Seventh Street was, as usual, packed, and Mimi gritted her teeth as she bobbed and weaved through the endless crowd. She sidestepped the store workers grabbing a smoke, covering her mouth so she wouldn’t get cancer. She swerved around the stern-looking guard unloading the armored car, with the gun conspicuously dangling from his belt. And she dodged the “hawker” trying to lure her into a jewelry store, who every day asked if she had gold to sell, even though every day she told him no.
Finally, Mimi reached her father’s building, 460 Fifth, the most popular address on “The Street.” After a few minutes standing and tapping her foot on the security line, she handed her driver’s license to the security guard and called out, “Rosen Diamonds.”
“Miss,” growled the guard with the oversized forehead who’d seen her three days a week for the past two months, “you should get a building ID. It’ll save you time in the morning.”
“It’s okay. I won’t be working here for long,” she chirped, though she wasn’t quite sure of that.
Next stop, the elevator bank. Mimi had an irrational fear of elevators; she was always worried she would die in one. She particularly hated these elevators, which were extremely narrow and perpetually packed. She envied those for whom a subway was their sole exposure to a cramped unpleasant space.
As the car rose, one occupant asked a Hasidic dealer how he was finding things.
“All you can do is put on your shoes. The rest is up to the man upstairs.”
Only in the diamond business. Mimi’s last job was thirty blocks away, yet in a different universe.
At each floor, dealers pushed and rushed like they were escaping a fire. When the elevator reached her floor, Mimi too elbowed her way to freedom.
As she walked to her father’s office, she marveled how the building, so fancy and impressive when she was a kid, had sunk into disrepair. The carpets were frayed, the paint was peeling, and the bathroom rarely contained more than one functioning toilet. If management properly maintained the building, they’d charge Midtown Manhattan rents, which small dealers like her father couldn’t afford. The neglect suited everyone.
She spied a new handwritten sign, “No large minyans, by order of the fire department.” Mimi produced a deep sigh. She had long ago left her religious background behind. Somehow, she was now working in a building where they warn against praying in the halls. She was going backward.
Perhaps the dealer in the elevator was right. You could only put on your shoes and do your best. She grabbed her pocketbook strap, threw her head back, and was just about at her father’s office when she heard the yelling.
“I’m so tired of waiting, Yosef! It’s not fair!”
Max’s receptionist, Channah, was arguing with her boyfriend, Yosef, a small-time, perpetually unsuccessfully diamond dealer. Making it more awkward: Yosef was Mimi’s cousin.
Channah and Yosef had dated for nearly eighteen months without getting married—an eternity in Channah’s community. Still, whenever Channah complained, Mimi remembered how her ex-husband only popped the question after three years and two ultimatums.
“Give me more time,” Yosef stuttered, as he tended to do when nervous. “I want to be successful in the business.”
“When’s that going to happen? The year three thousand?”
The argument shifted to Yiddish, which Mimi didn’t understand, though they were yelling so fiercely she didn’t need to. Finally, tall, skinny Yosef stormed out of the office, his black hat and suit set off by his red face. He was walking so fast he didn’t notice his cousin Mimi standing against the wall. Given the circumstances, she didn’t stop him to say hello. She watched his back grow smaller as he stomped and grunted down the hall.
Mimi gave Channah time to cool down. After a minute checking in vain for responses to her latest freelance pitch—editors weren’t even bothering to reject her anymore—she rang the doorbell. She flashed a half-smile at the security camera stationed over the door, and Channah buzzed her in. Mimi hopped into the “man trap,” the small square space between security doors that was a standard feature of diamond offices. She let the first door slam behind her, heard the second buzz, pulled the metal handle on the inner door, and said hello to Channah, perched at her standard spot at the reception desk.
Channah had long dark curly hair, which she constantly twirled; a round, expressive face, dotted with black freckles; and a voluptuous figure that even her modest religious clothing couldn’t hide.
“Did you hear us argue?” she asked Mimi.
“No,” she sputtered. “I mean—”
Channah smiled and pointed to the video monitor on her desk. “I could see you on the camera.” Her shoulders slouched. “It was the same stupid argument we always have. Even I’m bored by it.”
“Hang in there. We’ll talk at lunch.” Mimi and Channah shared a quick hug, and Mimi walked back to the office.
She was greeted by her father’s smile and a peck on the cheek. If anything made this job worthwhile, it was that grin. Plus the money.
“How are things this morning?”
“Baruch Hashem,” Max replied. Max said “thank God” all the time, even during his wife’s sickness, when he really didn’t seem all that thankful.
Sure enough, he added, “We’re having a crisis.”
Mimi almost rolled her eyes. It was always a crisis in the office. When Mimi was young, the family joke was that business was either “terrible” or “worse than terrible.”
Lately, her dad seemed more agitated than normal. As he spoke, he puttered in a circle and his hands clutched a pack of Tums. That usually didn’t come out until noon.
“I can’t find the two-carat pear shape.” He threw his arms up and his forehead exploded into a sea of worry lines. “It’s not here, it’s not there. It’s nowhere.”
Max Rosen was dressed, as usual, in a white button-down shirt and brown wool slacks, with a jeweler’s loupe dangling on a rope from his neck. His glasses sat off-kilter on his nose, and two shocks of white hair jutted from his skull like wings. When he was excited about something, like this missing diamond, the veins in his neck popped and the bobby-pinned yarmulke seemed to flap on his head.
Mimi stifled a laugh. That was the crisis? Diamonds always got lost in the office. As kids, Mimi and her two sisters used to come in on weekends and be paid one dollar for every stone they found on the floor. “They travel,” Max would say.
It was no surprise that things went missing in that vortex of an office. Every desk was submerged under a huge stack of books, magazines, and papers. The most pressing were placed on the seat near her father’s desk, what he called his “in-chair.”
When Mimi’s mother worked there, she kept a lid on the chaos. After her death, Max hired a few bookkeepers, none of whom lasted; two years later, the job had somehow fallen to Mimi.
Eventually, Channah found the two-carat pear shape, snug in its parcel papers, right next to the bathroom keys. The only logical explanation was that Max was examining it while on the toilet.
Max sheepishly returned to his desk. Mimi loved watching her father at work. She was fascinated by how he joked with friends, took grief from clients, and kept track of five things at once. It felt exotic and forbidden, like observing an animal in its natural habitat.
For the most part, they got along, which was no small thing. Over the years, there had been tense moments as he struggled to accept that she was no longer religious. Lately, he rarely brought the topic up, and she didn’t want him to. Her split from her non-Jewish ex probably helped.
On occasion, the old strains resurfaced, in subtle ways. Max’s desk was covered with photos—mostly of Mimi’s mom and her religious sisters and their religious broods. One time when Max was at lunch, Mimi tiptoed over to glance at them, and—not incidentally—check how many were of her. It made her feel silly, yet she couldn’t help herself. She was a professional nosy person.
She got her answer: out of about twenty photos, Mimi was in three, an old family photo and two pics from her sisters’ weddings. That was less than expected. She tried not to take it personally. She had no kids and her marriage was a bust. What was there to show off?
Mimi spent most of the morning deciphering her father’s books—a task made more difficult by his aging computer system, which regularly stalled and crashed. Her father’s “new” software was actually fifteen years old.
Sometimes she wished he gave her more substantial tasks to do. While her father would never say it, he didn’t consider the diamond industry a place for women, as it had always been male-dominated—even though, ironically, it catered mostly to females. That was fine with Mimi. She didn’t want to devote her life to a rock.
At 1 PM, Channah and Mimi headed for Kosher Gourmet, their usual lunch spot. Mimi always joked, “I don’t know if it’s kosher, but it’s not gourmet.”
In the two months Mimi had worked for her father, she and Channah had become fast friends, bonding over their shared love of mystery novels, crossword puzzles, and sarcastic senses of humor.
Channah was not Mimi’s typical friend. She was twenty-three and her parents were strictly religious, even more than Mimi’s. She commuted to Forty-Seventh Street every day on a charter bus from Borough Park, a frum enclave in Brooklyn. The Diamond District was her main exposure to the wider world. She reminded Mimi of her younger, more religious self, under her parents’ thrall yet curious what else was out there.
Mimi was not Channah’s typical friend either. During their lunches, Channah quizzed her on the taste of non-Kosher food (it didn’t taste any different, Mimi told her); sex (“When the time comes,” Mimi said, “you’ll figure it out”); and popular culture (“Can you explain,” Channah once asked, “why Kim Kardashian is famous?” Mimi just said no.) Today, as usual, they talked about Yosef.
“I don’t get it.” Channah wrapped sesame noodles around her white plastic fork. “I love him. He loves me. Why not get married?”
Mimi took a sip from her Styrofoam cup filled with warm tap water. She preferred bottled water but couldn’t afford it. “Have you thought of giving Yosef an ultimatum? Tell him if he doesn’t marry you by a certain date, that’s it.”
“Yosef wouldn’t take that seriously.” Channah turned her eyes to her tray.
“Why not?”
“Cause I’ve done that already. Three times! I backed down every time.” Her fork toyed with her food. “I believe it is beshert that Yosef and I will end up together. I’ve thought so since I first met him at your father’s office, and he smiled at me. What choice do I have?” Her elbow nudged her tray across the table.
“I understand why he’s waiting. He wants to be a steady provider. That’s a good thing, right?”
Actually, Mimi found it sexist. She didn’t say that, because she found many things in Channah’s world sexist.
“He just needs to sell that pink,” Channah said, spearing a dark brown cube of chicken.
Mimi took a quick sip of water. “That pink” was an awkward subject.
One month ago, Yosef had bought a three-point-two carat pink diamond. It was the biggest purchase of his career, the kind of high-risk move that could make or break his business. Max was overjoyed. “Do you know how rare pink diamonds are?” he exclaimed. “And it’s a three-carater! Sounds like a great buy!”
That was, until Yosef proudly presented it to his uncle Max, who inspected it under his favorite lamp, muttered “very nice,” and quickly handed it back.
It was only after Yosef left that Max dismissed his nephew’s score as a strop, a dog of a diamond, the kind of unsellable item that gathered dust in a safe.
“It has so many pepper spots,” Max lamented. “The color’s not strong at all. No one will buy that thing.”
“Maybe he got it for a good price,” Mimi said.
“I’m sure whoever sold it to him said it was the bargain of the century. Anytime someone offers me a metziah, that’s a sign they can’t sell the stone. There’s a saying, ‘your metziah is my strop.’” His face sagged. “I wish he talked to me first. That stone is worthless. I don’t have the heart to tell him.”
When Channah brought up the big pink at lunch, Mimi didn’t want to dwell on the subject. “What’s happening with that?” she asked, as casually as possible.
“Didn’t you hear?” Channah jerked forward. “It got the highest grade possible on its USGR cert.”
“You’ll have to translate.” Mimi tuned out most diamond talk.
“Cert is short for certificate, meaning grading report. The USGR is the U.S. Academy for Gemological Research, the best lab in the industry.”
Mimi just stared.
“That stone’s worth four million dollars.”
That Mimi understood. “Wow.” A lot of money for a dog of a diamond.
“Four point one million, to be exact.” Channah laughed. “Don’t want to leave that point one out!”
“I thought that stone was—”
“Ugly?” Channah chuckled. “Me too! I don’t understand how it got that grade. I guess it doesn’t matter. As your father says, ‘today the paper is worth more than the diamond.’” She slurped some diet soda.
“Is Yosef going to get four million dollars?”
“Who knows? He isn’t exactly an expert in selling such a stone. Your father convinced him to post it on one of the online trading networks. Someone called him about it yesterday.”
“That’s great!”
“Hopefully. If anyone could screw this up, Yosef could.” Channah’s mouth curled downward. “I keep checking my phone to see if there’s any news.” She flipped over her iPhone, saw nothing, and flipped it back. “The way I figure, if he sells that stone, he’ll have to marry me. Unless he comes up with some new excuse. He wouldn’t do that, right? Not after all this time. Would he?”
Mimi struggled to keep herself in check. She was dying to shake Channah and scream that if Yosef wasn’t giving her what she wanted, it was time to move on. She didn’t. Yosef was her cousin. Mimi was in no position to critique someone else’s love life. She always told people hers was “on hold.” It was basically non-existent.
Plus, she remembered how, weeks before her wedding, her friends warned her that her fiancé had a wandering eye. That just strengthened her resolve to marry him, even though in retrospect, they were right. “With situations like that,” her therapist said later, “I always recommend not to say anything. Just be a supportive friend.”
Mimi waited until Channah stopped speaking. She touched her hand. “I’m sure it will work out,” she said.
***
Author Bio
Rob Bates has written about the diamond industry for over 25 years. He is currently the news director of JCK, the leading publication in the jewelry industry, which just celebrated its 150th anniversary. He has won 12 editorial awards, and been quoted as an industry authority in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and on National Public Radio.
He is also a comedy writer and performer, whose work has appeared on Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update segment, comedycentral.com, and McSweeneys He has also written for Time Out New York, New York Newsday, and Fastcompany.com. He lives in Manhattan with his wife and son.
