Thursday, July 4, 2013

A Murder in Passing: A Sam Blackman Mystery by Mark de Castrique

Going on a mushroom hunt can't be dangerous, can it?  It isn't really, but Sam still manages to find a dead body hidden in a fallen tree...

Poisoned Pen Press and Net Galley allowed me to download an ebook of this story and read it for review (thank you).  It has now been published, so check with your local bookstore for a copy.

Blackman & Robertson Detective Agency hasn't been busy so Sam agrees to go on the mushroom hunt.  Finding the dead body is intriguing, but not a case.  At least, not until a middle-aged black woman walks through the door with a case of burglary she wants solved.  The fact that it happened 40 years ago doesn't seem to bother her, but it makes Sam suspicious.  Why bring this up now and can this be related to the death?

This is a convoluted story about two families and their children.  It's also about race, the Jim Crow laws, and people's attitudes towards the blacks and the whites.  This is a tangled web with almost equal love and hate involved.  It's an interesting story with only one flaw in my eyes.  I wanted to know the fate of the wounded soldier who had been shot and he was left in a coma at the end of the book.  I imagine he'll be part of the next book in this series.

This author writes an authentic story that makes you shake your head and ask why as you keep reading.  Because that is how life is, that's why.

Happy reading.

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