DESPITE HERSELF--Review

 

Despite Herself

By Jessie Chandler

ISBN: 978-1-64247-673-6

A 2025 release from

Bella Books

 

Passion is a six-letter word. Passion is both a noun and a verb and, in this novel, expresses a wide range of feelings, incidents, activity and results. It will be interesting to discover how booksellers will categorize and shelve this excellent novel. Is it a mystery, a procedural, a romance, or is it a detailed, carefully laid out character study? In my view, the answer is yes.

Two strong women, one a police officer, the other a bar owner, both with troubled incidents in their pasts, encounter each other in the midst of murder, divorce, alcoholic indulgence and riotous humor.  Theo Zaccardo is the owner/operator of a Duluth bar called the Mashed Spud, an LGBTQ hangout. She’s quickly under suspicion as the probable killer of an obnoxious, trouble-making patron. Bec Harrison is a recovering divorcee from Detroit who has moved to Duluth to get away from her cheating spouse and all the scenes that reminds her of her failed romance. She’s a talented cop and that results in her hiring by Duluth PD.arrisonH

Harrison is assigned the murder at the Mashed Spud and her connection to Theo grows. The investigation and the gradual reveal of earlier difficulties in both women’s lives is carefully blended and logically produced. This is a well-written novel with many appropriate descriptive elements that will carry readers into the physical places and the even deeper emotional developments. A moving, engrossing, carefully-paced novel with surprising and well-set conclusions.

POSTMARKED CASTLE COVE--Review

 POSTMARKED CASTLE COVE

by Judy M. Kerr 

ISBN: 978-1-63304-075-5

Released by Launch Point Press, 2025 

MC McCall is an up-front on-duty experienced member of the US Postal  Service. She's also a recently recovering alcoholic. She's just finished a recovery program at a local clinic in Minnesota, faces regular AA meetings and two of her long-time Minneapolis pals. Not a happy camper. 

Her next assignment is a few hundred miles north to Castle Grove and a robbery at the local post office. McCall recognizes she's still in some ways on probation so she sets out to nail down this relatively minor crime. Readers of this troubling, intense crime novel will surely recognize that McCall is about to step onto a slippery slope and into an evil, dangerous and nasty situation that far outranks a simple robbery gone awry.

The author's language is precise and firm, often blunt, but always to the point. The characters come alive off the page and sometimes smack a reader in the face. The pace of the novel is relentless, even those character-explaining asides when McCall returns to home base in Saint Paul, interruptions in her pursuit of the postal robber.

Gradually, readers are introduced to that region of Minnesota called the North Shore which has a significant effect on the plot and on many of the characters that people this story. There are a lot of characters, but most are carefully detailed so as to be separately recognized by the reader.

Postal Inspector McCall is gradually drawn into crimes in Castle Cove which are the most evil and heinous imaginable. And while they are dealt with by this author in a way that makes the reading more palatable, that decision tends to slightly reduce the punch of the actions of some of the characters. Be that as it is, the novel follows McCall's struggle with her personal additions and the negative influence of the evil she confronts in thoughtful, careful ways that will engage the sympathetic and attentive reader.

 

 

 

MALICE --Review

MALICE

 by S.J.Smith 

ISBN: 979-8-9868495-3-6

 Paperback published by

 SightlinePress, Saint Paul, MN, 2025 

 Anyone with experience with officers of the law knows they come in a wide variety of humanity. Backgrounds are varied, although in most states, including Minnesota, police officers have a certain level of education. It affects their abilities in communicating with the public.

 In this novel, Pete Culnane, a Saint Paul detective, with partner Martin Tierney, are both well-educated, experienced detective who understand and use their language at a fairly high level. It affords them opportunities to interact cleanly and politely with victims, suspects and witnesses. In this, the author's tenth Culnane story, the lead detective is still on a return path from paternity leave. Now, as a new father, he has to deal wit the question of allotted and obligated time, for the job and for the family. He wants to spend as much time with his family as he can, but there is this murdered guy on a Saint Paul street curb. Fred Brooten is discovered shot to death on a cold and miserable early Spring day in St. Paul. He was shot to death and the forensic unit has noted, for the detective team that Brooten is flat on his face in the snow. He was shot as was his nearby truck. The detective trio, preserving their gentlemanly traits travel the city, following clues and ideas until they reach the identity of the killer of Brooten. 

 But then comes the other question. Why was he killed? The answer will surprise readers.