Title: Nobody’s Angel
Author: Linda Freeny
Publisher: Toplink Publishing
ISBN: 978-1948779968
Pages: 262
Genre: Crime / Mystery
Reviewed by: Dave Bishop
Pacific Book Review
Linda Freeny has written an engrossing, multi-layered mystery and packed it with just enough police procedures to keep it as credible as it is compelling. Certainly the success or failure of most crime and mystery stories relies on intricate plotting to engage, confound, and ultimately explain just how a solution is achieved. This novel does that in spades. Fortunately it doesn’t stop there. It also introduces the reader to a big cast of characters who are far less stereotypical than those often found populating the pages of many books in the crime/mystery genre. Nobody’s Angel is a good story well told.
It begins in New York City with the death of a young woman. For all practical purposes it appears that it’s simply another prostitute’s drug overdose. But one of the two detectives who are called to the scene is leery of such a quick conclusion. He lobbies his superior to let him do some further investigation, even if he has to do it on his own time. In doing so, he finds that the deceased is actually from a small town outside the city—a town he grew up in as a boy. This cements his commitment to pursue the investigation even though his boss thinks it’s a waste of time and resources. As you might expect, it isn’t. Soon information is being uncovered that proves it was not an overdose; it was murder. And the victim, far from being just another hooker, was someone from the detective’s past—someone who would prove to be a catalyst for sordid goings on in the small town and for the cop’s searing stroll down memory lane.
As said initially, interesting characters abound. Dave, the police protagonist, is a man whose nightmares often precede tragedies he’s unable to totally understand or stop in advance. Trinity is the woman in town every man lusts over and every woman gossips about. Bertha Bartlett is an aging schoolteacher who knows everyone in town perhaps too well. Sheriff Bromley is a law officer seemingly more interested in his impending retirement than escalating homicides. St. John is a shady businessman who just might be a drug pusher, a murderer, or none of the aforementioned. That’s the beauty of Freeny’s narrative. She continually adds people who might be suspects and behavior that might or might not indicate motive. By the time you think you may have this mystery figured out, you just might have to think again.
Freeny is a skilled writer working at the top of her game. She builds suspense methodically. She drops clues you’ll kick yourself for missing. She’s equally at home depicting erotic lovemaking or bone crunching fisticuffs. She knots all the loose ends that need to be tied. Best of all, she makes you want to keep reading. Do so and you’ll be glad you decided to join the hunt for the killer of Nobody’s Angel.
