Suspense Magazine July 2013

BLOOD OF MY BLOOD
By Ralph Pezzullo
A guy like Smokey Annicelli, a former New York City cop turned private investigator,
may let his wife down and may disappoint his grown daughters, but he’d never go back on
the promise he made to his dying best friend to look after his children. Only at some point he
must have, because the nineteen-year-old Ricky Bravero is dead, shot nine times in the back.
To the police, the case is simple—a drug addict killed by his dealer for non-payment—
but Smokey thinks there are deeper questions to be asked, and he is soon demanding the
answers. A few are found easily, but others are being hidden so well that Smokey finds it hard to shed light
into places that have remained dark for decades.
Help comes in the form of old friends and new acquaintances, but who can he really trust Though
Smokey isn’t certain he can believe in anyone, he realizes he has to trust someone in order to get the answers
that dangle just out of reach.
Threatening phone calls and a brutal attack lead to an attempt on Smokey’s life, with results that could
change everything for him. Pulled in one direction by his need to right old wrongs, pulled in another
direction by a girlfriend who wants more than he’s been giving, Smokey has to balance the new promises
he’s almost ready to make with the old promises that are tightening around his neck.
Told in present tense, “Blood of My Blood” has an immediacy that propels the story forward at a
blistering pace. Author Pezzullo’s terse dialogue and raw descriptions take the reader straight to the seamiest
side of the roughest streets of New York City, where Smokey finds out that an old promise is dragging him
toward places he never wanted to go.
Reviewed by Laura Alden, author of “Curse of the PTA” for Suspense Magazine ■
MY LUNATIC LIFE
By Sharon Sala
Tara Luna lives with her Uncle Pat, has since her parents died. He is as best a parent as he
can be to the young girl. We meet them as they move to Stillwater, Oklahoma.
Another new school where they can call her Luna the Looney, Moon Girl, or even worse,
witch. Tara is not only psychic but has a couple of hundred-year-old ghosts, Millicent and
Henry, who provide a little protection and advice and cause general mayhem to embarrass
Tara at every opportunity.
Other than her ghostly followers and rare ability to read minds and peer into the future a little, Tara is
just like every other teenager: likes the bad boys, has a run-in with the head cheerleader, etc. Sala follows the
pattern of typical high school cliques that all of us have run into one way or the other.
Dealing with the rigors of just being a teenager and full of angst, Tara also handles being the new girl
and the knowledge there is a foreboding dark presence in the house she and Uncle Pat moved into. By the
time she meets the ghost of the young girl who was murdered there, helps save the life of a student at school
who is having a seizure, and leads the police to one of her schoolmates who has been kidnapped, all by
demonstrating her psychic powers to her new friends, Uncle Pat is forced to believe there is more to Tara
than meets the eye.
Using real places and street names in the Stillwater area helps bring this book to life. In this, the first in
the series of the “My Lunatic Life” young adult novels, Sala gives us a plucky little heroine to cheer for and
leaves us eager to read the next book, for after all, there is still a murder to solve if the ghost of the child in
her house is to be appeased.
Reviewed by Mark P. Sadler, author of “Blood on his Hands” published by Suspense Publishing, an imprint
of Suspense Magazine ■
I HEAR THE SIRENS IN THE STREET
By Adrian McKinty
Book II of The Troubles Trilogy is a tension-filled narrative that draws readers into the
life of Police Detective Inspector, Sean Duffy. It is the early 1980s and the civil war in Belfast,
Northern Ireland is raging—with more violence and pain occurring each and every day.
The author begins with a ‘bang’ not a ‘whimper,’ as Sean discovers the remains of a man’s
torso stuffed into a suitcase buried in a dumpster. The only evidence of who the man might
have been comes in the form of a partial tattoo. The authorities don’t have much to go on,
suffice to say, so Duffy and his cohorts hit the bricks to do some good old-fashioned police work.
Finally able to identify the corpse, the happiness is short-lived. The body is an American tourist who
has no links that could have caused him this much pain. The case slows to a crawl as Sean attempts to put
two and two together.
Never giving up, he comes up with scenarios about what the sinister plot could be. A random act of
violence in the already violent city Or perhaps a conspiracy involving British Intelligence, American FBI,
and some local paramilitary death squads that Sean most definitely doesn’t want to get involved with
A redheaded beauty whose husband died in an IRA assassination may just hold the answers. But as
Sean gets deeper into the case, passion and professional misconduct may just end up to be the combo that
does him in for good.
Full of sorrow for the country and people of Northern Ireland, this plot will keep the reader busy. Being
a standalone book, even though it’s part of the series, knowing Book I (“The Cold, Cold Ground”) ahead of
time is not a necessity. However, after this, you’ll be scrambling to see how it all began.
Reviewed by Amy Lignor, author of “The Sapphire Storm: Tallent & Lowery Book Two” published by
Suspense Publishing, an imprint of Suspense Magazine ■
SuspenseMagazine.com
KILLER AMBITION
By Marcia Clark
Marcia Clark
scores once again with
a taut, suspenseful,
and intelligent legal
thriller. In the third
Rachel Knight novel,
the teenage daughter
of wealthy Hollywood
director Russell
Antonovich is kidnapped. After he
delivers the ransom money, one
million dollars in cash, the girl is
found dead in the trunk of a car at
the Los Angeles airport. DA Rachel
Knight and her friend Bailey Keller, a
detective from the LAPD, believe the
case to be a kidnapping gone wrong,
until the suspected kidnapper is also
found dead in a shallow grave on a
remote mountain road.
As the investigation proceeds,
the prosecution’s evidence points
toward Ian Powers, a former child
star, now high profile manager and
close family friend of the dead girl,
Hayley Antonovich. Although the
police find strong forensic evidence,
they are unable to identify a motive
for the killing, until Rachel and
her associates dig deeper into the
backgrounds of Antonovich and
Powers, as well as the would-be
kidnapper and Hayley’s boyfriend,
Brian Maher.
The criminal trial begins, and
Rachel is pitted against a defense
attorney who does not hesitate to use
any dirty trick available to discredit
the prosecution’s evidence. And as
well as proving her case, Rachel must
deal with the members of the press
who hone in on a great celebrity
story, no matter who is guilty or
innocent. Eventually the truth
comes out, illustrating the lengths to
which they will go in order to achieve
success in a cutthroat industry.
Ms. Clark’s strong female
characters and insight into both
the motivations of the criminals
and those who surround them, as
well as the lawyers and police who
search for the truth, make this an
exceptional novel. Her personal
experience as a prosecutor makes
her uniquely qualified to write about
the investigations and courtroom
proceedings, but her strong writing
makes the novel entertaining and
satisfying.
Reviewed by Kathleen Heady,
author of “Lydia’s Story” for Suspense
Magazine ■
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