First in Trilogy of Murder Mysteries Features Irresistibly Likable Protagonist
First in Trilogy of Murder Mysteries Features Irresistibly Likable Protagonist Elena Hartwell has written a trilogy of murder mysteries, One Dead, Two to Go, featuring the charming and likable protagonist Edwina Shultz Zapata. The book follows the adventures of Eddie Shoes, a Private Investigator who investigates the husband of a client anticipating a messy divorce. Hartwell's smooth transitions from chapter to chapter and engaging dialogue seamlessly transition the action from breaking-and-entering to kidnapping and murder. As the case progresses, Eddie Shoes becomes more involved in investigations due to the discovery of a dead woman in an abandoned building. The series also includes a love interest for Eddie's mother, Chava Shultz, and a mystery involving a Las Vegas woman.
Опубликовано : 2 года назад от в General
One Dead, Two to Go by Elena Hartwell
A Private Investigator's job becomes a lot harder when a simple infidelity case becomes murder.
If ever there was a book begging for a sequel, it’s One Dead, Two to Go, and if One Dead is your introduction to author Elena Hartwell and her work, you’re in luck. This is the first in a trio of murder mysteries starring the refreshing and irresistibly likable Edwina Shultz Zapata.
Daughter of a teenaged free spirit named Chava Shultz and a bit of a cad named Eduardo Zapata, little Edwina wisely decided to answer only to the name Eddie (mostly because Edwina was hard to pronounce) and, when she was old enough to do so, legally changed her name to Eddie Shoes.
And so “Call me Eddie Shoes” begins the first book of the adventures of Eddie Shoes, Private Investigator.
She’s tailing the wayward husband of a weepy client named Kendra T. Hallings who’s anticipating a messy divorce. Eddie has followed him to a seedy motel where he exits, straightening his tie and kissing a scantily clad woman goodbye in the conveniently brightly lit doorway – where Eddie gets the photographs she needs for her client.
At this point, Eddie Shoes is congratulating herself on an easy job well done, and readers have the first example of Hartwell’s smooth transitions from chapter to chapter: “What,” Eddie asks herself, “could possibly go wrong with such an easy case?”
Eddie’s day tumbles along smoothly until the cops arrive unannounced and make her “easy case” a little more complicated: The scantily clad woman in the photos she took the night before has been found dead and crammed into the crawlspace of an abandoned building.
Hartwell slips a love interest into the narrative followed shortly by the arrival of Eddie’s mother lugging a suitcase and a flimsy story about getting kicked out of Las Vegas. Chava, never a candidate for Mother of the Year, has been in and out of Eddie’s radar for years, making her living gambling and who-knows-what-else, but as an accomplished card counter, she has worn out her welcome. Suddenly, Eddie has a roommate.
As Kendra Hallings’ impending divorce proceedings now include a murder, Eddie Shoes has to ramp up her investigative talents, and Chava just can’t leave well enough alone. Her Las Vegas “contacts” might be shady, but they do know things, and Chava is fearless about creeping around in the dark. Although Eddie tries to educate her mother about the legality of some of the things they’re doing, Chava soldiers on; and to Eddie’s surprise, she makes a good partner.
Hartwell’s spare and lively dialogue smoothly moves the action from breaking-and-entering to kidnapping and gunshots, lies, stolen identities, romance, and a dog. She drops a line at the end of every chapter to tease her readers to keep reading, and it works. “What could possibly go wrong?” Rhetorical question. Or Eddie chastises herself that she might have been better prepared … “if I had paid a little more attention.” Eddie most certainly wishes she had.
But by the time One Dead, Two to Go loosely ties up its loose ends, Eddie and Chava seem to have a future together, maybe. And with the dog in the back seat.
Elena Hartwell was born in Bogota, Colombia, while her parents were in the Peace Corps. Her first word was “cuidado.” At the age of nine months, she told two men carrying a heavy table to be careful in their native tongue. She’s been telling people what to do ever since. After almost twenty years in the theater, Elena turned her playwriting skills to novels and the result was her first book “One Dead, Two to Go,” followed by “Two Heads Are Deader Than One” and “Three Strikes, You’re Dead.” Elena is also a developmental editor and the author of The Foundation of Plot and the upcoming The Construction of Character, the first two books in her Wait, Wait, Don’t Query (Yet!) series. For more information on Elena, who also writes under Elena Taylor, visit elenahartwell.com or like her Facebook Page Author.Elena.Taylor. You can see cute pictures of her dog, cats, and horses.
Темы: Crime, Murder