Romilla Chacaon Mysteries by Marcos McPeek Villatoro
Home Killings
Introduces us to Romilia Chacaon, a rookie in the Nashville police force. She receives her first murder case when called to the scene of an apparent suicide. Romilia quickly discerns that the young Latino reporter was murdered possibly because of an upcoming article connecting a media-touted Latino philanthropist, lately arrived from Atlanta, with drugs and kids. She is able to tie this murder with two other serials murders that already have someone in jail for killing them. Thus making the other officer look incompetent. Are the ceremonially slaughtered bodies the product of ancient ritual, a serial killer or a campaign to shock rival drug lords into compliance?
Combatingng the machismo of the police force and the challenges of being an outsider within the Latino community. She is also introduced to the drug and illegal trade of the seedy underworld of Nashville. But she has to find balance with her work and personal life, where mother and child are both so dependent on her.
Very interesting read, much more dark and intense than I normally enjoy. I met the author at the Friends of the Cerritos Library mystery author luncheon in January. He is a very intense and intriguing person, plus a great public speaker. I find when I meet authors I want to read their books to see if the impression I got matches how they write. His definitely does.
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Fremont Jones mysteries by Dianne Day
Strange files of Fremont Jones
The year is 1905. Fleeing the confines of her staid Boston upbringing and a potential marriage to a loathsome suitor, the modern-thinking Caroline Fremont Jones opens a typewriting business in San Francisco using the name Fremont. Her business brings her in contact with the normally mild young attorney Justin Cameron, who reacts with hostility when Fremont takes dictation from "ancient gentleman" Li Wong. A week later, Li Wong is dead, and Fremont's office is ransacked. Another client, Edgar Allan Partridge, brings three manuscript stories to Freemont for typing but never returns to pick them up. His brooding tales are full of evil and very like those of his namesake. Fremont's investigations into the mysteries of her dead and missing clients lead her to suspect her rooming-house neighbor, whom she believes is a spy. There is even a little bit of sex as she makes the wrong decision of who to have sex with.
Fun and entertaining read of a woman who is trying to make a life for herself without a man. I read this probably 5 years ago and enjoyed reading it again to read more of the series.
Fire and Fog
The new book opens with Fremont dreaming that a train is approaching but in reality the great 1906 earthquake is hitting San Francisco. After rescuing her typewriter from the rubble, Jones goes to work helping out the Red Cross, typing letters in the home of a woman she saved during the tremor. When she finds Alice dead in the sitting room she hunts down the police only to find the body is gone. Labeled a troublemaker by the police Fremont must determine who would murder Alice but finds that she has a very sinister past. She goes hunting for illegal artifacts and helping her friend Meiling escape from an arranged marrage and find a new life. She even gets kidnapped by a ninja and escapes without anyone's help!
In typical no-nosence fashion Fremont manages to solve several mysteries while getting her life back on track. Plus she manages to catch the eye of 3 men including Michael Archer who may or may not be a spy.
Bohemian murders
Fremont has left San Francisco and taken a temporary job as a lighthouse keeper. She finds a body floating in the surf near her beach. The police seem uninterested in the woman's identity, and her body disappears from the local mortuary after the coroner rules that she was murdered. Later, Fremont is attacked by a masked rider as she travels through the fog-shrouded forest in her rig. Caught up in these baffling events, she decides to find out who the woman was and who killed her. Meanwhile Fremont's mysterious lover is living nearby in a colony of bohemian artists.
An obvious solution and once again Fremont's life is put in danger.
Emporer Norton's Ghosts
Death Train to Boston
Beacon Street Mourning
Strange files of Fremont Jones
The year is 1905. Fleeing the confines of her staid Boston upbringing and a potential marriage to a loathsome suitor, the modern-thinking Caroline Fremont Jones opens a typewriting business in San Francisco using the name Fremont. Her business brings her in contact with the normally mild young attorney Justin Cameron, who reacts with hostility when Fremont takes dictation from "ancient gentleman" Li Wong. A week later, Li Wong is dead, and Fremont's office is ransacked. Another client, Edgar Allan Partridge, brings three manuscript stories to Freemont for typing but never returns to pick them up. His brooding tales are full of evil and very like those of his namesake. Fremont's investigations into the mysteries of her dead and missing clients lead her to suspect her rooming-house neighbor, whom she believes is a spy. There is even a little bit of sex as she makes the wrong decision of who to have sex with.
Fun and entertaining read of a woman who is trying to make a life for herself without a man. I read this probably 5 years ago and enjoyed reading it again to read more of the series.
Fire and Fog
The new book opens with Fremont dreaming that a train is approaching but in reality the great 1906 earthquake is hitting San Francisco. After rescuing her typewriter from the rubble, Jones goes to work helping out the Red Cross, typing letters in the home of a woman she saved during the tremor. When she finds Alice dead in the sitting room she hunts down the police only to find the body is gone. Labeled a troublemaker by the police Fremont must determine who would murder Alice but finds that she has a very sinister past. She goes hunting for illegal artifacts and helping her friend Meiling escape from an arranged marrage and find a new life. She even gets kidnapped by a ninja and escapes without anyone's help!
In typical no-nosence fashion Fremont manages to solve several mysteries while getting her life back on track. Plus she manages to catch the eye of 3 men including Michael Archer who may or may not be a spy.
Bohemian murders
Fremont has left San Francisco and taken a temporary job as a lighthouse keeper. She finds a body floating in the surf near her beach. The police seem uninterested in the woman's identity, and her body disappears from the local mortuary after the coroner rules that she was murdered. Later, Fremont is attacked by a masked rider as she travels through the fog-shrouded forest in her rig. Caught up in these baffling events, she decides to find out who the woman was and who killed her. Meanwhile Fremont's mysterious lover is living nearby in a colony of bohemian artists.
An obvious solution and once again Fremont's life is put in danger.
Emporer Norton's Ghosts
Death Train to Boston
Beacon Street Mourning
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