Day of the Dead by Andi Marquette

THE RAINBOW READER WELCOMES SPECIAL GUEST REVIEWER

LYNETTE MAE 


Golden Crown Literary Award & Lambda Literary Award Finalist

Author of Faithful Service, Silent Hearts, Tactical Pursuit & the upcoming, Rebound

Book: Day of the Dead

Author: Andi Marquette

Publisher: Regal Crest Enterprises

Day of the Dead is the fourth installment of Andi Marquette’s New Mexico series, featuring memorable lead characters, Professor K.C. Fontero, and her buddy, Detective Chris Gutierrez. I first fell in love with these characters in Land of Entrapment, the series keystone, and they have become loyal, old friends who never disappoint. The series is set against the backdrop of the sweeping New Mexico landscape, rich with picturesque images and South of the Border influences that transport the reader effortlessly. Ms. Marquette is a master of scene, and I can almost taste the green chile and feel the arid climate around me.

I've spent a lot of time talking with other authors about “buddy novels”, and this series is an example of that genre at it’s very best. Each story features and alternates between K.C. or Chris as the lead, with the other character filling in the blanks through friendship and professional expertise. Add into the mix K.C.’s delightful, free-spirited partner, Sage, and Chris’s new love, the beautiful, whip-smart attorney, Dayna, and you have a solid ensemble cast.

I love strong, capable female characters—and readers out there, let me assure you that women rule these novels—the formula works.

This time around, Detective Chris Gutierrez has the lead and her hands are full. The story opens with Chris and her detective partner, Dale Harper, on the scene of a grisly murder. The murder scene shows signs of possible gang connections, and then there’s the killer’s unique calling card. The detective’s first task is to figure out whether the crime is the result of the victim’s gang or drug affiliations, or something deeper. Evidence soon indicates that the victim was involved in human trafficking across the Mexican border.

This isn’t a police procedural and I don’t think Ms. Marquette intends it to be. She doesn’t try to bog us down with needless jargon or use inaccurate depictions that can make law enforcement types cringe. That said, she incorporates her knowledge of the subject matter and careful research to tell a tight, interesting story. What this career cop enjoys about the story is the way she humanizes the detectives. Too often police characters are depicted as either super-human crime-fighters or bumbling idiots, and of course, neither cliché is accurate.

Chris and Harper make a fantastic odd couple in the good cop/bad cop tradition of police stories. On the surface, Harper is the textbook white male, ignorant to other ethnic origins and non-white cultures. Chris is the daughter of Mexican immigrants, and not just a female detective, but a lesbian. Their pairing makes them a great crime-fighting team, and more than that, it requires their characters to challenge their own internal belief systems. Their strength is the way they play off each other to solve cases as their banter entertains us along the way.

Chris follows the trail from Albuquerque to El Paso. But, fear makes folks tight-lipped in immigrant communities and Chris must use every professional and personal connection to gather information bit by bit. To make matters worse, an anti-immigrant blogger is hell bent on twisting the truth about the Albuquerque PD, painting them as soft on crime and even corrupt. Chris now fears he’ll seize on her personal relationship with Dayna to add a new layer of hate to his commentary. She’s being squeezed from all sides, trying to balance her duty as a cop with the gray areas of the underground immigrant world, while struggling to keep her family and friends from becoming collateral damage of the blogger.

Author, Andi Marquette

The storytelling in Day of the Dead is vintage Andi Marquette. Her understanding of the culture and sensitivity weave a careful tapestry of nuance throughout the book. What I most love as a cop of twenty years is the message so very often lost in this black and white, polarized world of ours. While murder is murder, and right and wrong are easy to distinguish, people touched by the events are humans with faults. Ms. Marquette is careful to approach the subject of immigration with a light touch, understanding that the gray areas are many and vast. Don’t worry, you’ll find no preaching here—just a well-told mystery that will keep you turning the page, while you catch up with the rich characters we’ve all grown to love.

Day of the Dead is another winner from talented author, Andi Marquette. I give it a solid thumbs up, so go out and grab a copy, and settle in for a great ride.

Click this hotlink to read an excerpt from Andi Marquette's Day of the Dead.

Family Jewels by Kate Christie & Tactical Pursuit by Lynette Mae

The Rainbow Reader Welcomes Special Guest Reviewer

MICHELLE BROOKS 


Fellow Lesfic Aficionado and Humorist-In-Training

This week, Michelle tackles perception,

Family Jewels by Kate Christie, 
and Tactical Pursuit by Lynette Mae

Book:  Family Jewels

Author:  Kate Christie

Publisher:  Bella Books

Perception is a funny thing—while we use our senses to identify any number of things, it is our collective life experiences which shape how we perceive the world around us. 

Don’t worry, I am not going to go off on some existential rant about perception. I simply find it interesting that people can perceive the same event in vastly different ways. Some find Cupid to be a perfectly acceptable personification of love and romance. To me, a short, chubby kid in a diaper wielding a weapon hardly screams romance. 

Interpersonal relationships be they with friends, family members or romantic in nature, can thrive or wane depending on the perceptions held by the individuals involved. Years ago, my friend Liz ended a relationship because the person she was dating hated Jazz music and she perceived that as a significant character flaw. Another friend, Maria despises anything that combines chocolate and peanut butter. My perception is that Liz needs to lighten up a bit and Maria would do well to embrace what I consider to be an especially brilliant culinary amalgamation.

Then again, many people participate in Easter egg hunts where they search for colorfully dyed eggs which have been hidden outdoors. First of all, my hunting and gathering begins and ends at the grocery store. Secondly, I store my eggs in a relatively modern invention called a refrigerator. Hiding perfectly good food outdoors, searching for it, and then eating it once it has been found seems like a rather circuitous and potentially health threatening route to take simply because one has a taste for hard boiled eggs.

For the record, Maria and I have remained friends but Liz is still single, and continues her yearly trek to the Newport Jazz festival hoping to bring home a compatible Jazz aficionado.

In Kate Christie’s book, Family Jewels, the start of the new year has not been kind to Elizabeth Starreveld. Elizabeth, or Junior as she is called by her friends, barely finishes ringing in the new year with her girlfriend Maddie and her best friend Dez, when Dez confesses that she and Maddie are romantically involved. Junior is forced to work through the pain of losing both her girlfriend and her best friend while facing the added burdens of coming to terms with the declining health of her seriously ill mentor and dealing with strained family relationships. Junior has always perceived herself as being different from the rest of her family. While her sisters busied themselves playing dress-up and learning how to cook, Junior was roaming the woods and developing her love for all things botanical. Despite the fact that they have very little in common, there is one thing that Junior and her sisters do agree on. None of them are interested in following in their father’s footsteps and working at the family Jewelry store; a business that has been in their family for generations.

When Junior came out to her family shortly after high school, it created a chasm in her relationship with her father. As time went on, it grew deeper and despite her attendance at Sunday family dinners, Juniors relationship with her father was strained at best. He ignores her and she tries to ignore his obvious disappointment of her. When her father proposes that she accompany him on a business trip to a jeweler’s convention, Juniors first response is to decline. However after hearing that the trip would include a visit to Holland to see the tulips, Junior quickly changes her mind. While she and her father have different reasons motivating them to take this trip, they both discover that spending time together reaps greater benefits than either had anticipated.

Family Jewels includes numerous descriptive passages which allow the reader to accompany Junior as she experiences the beauty of the Netherlands. It is quite evident that Kate Christie has either done a tremendous amount of research, or she has been to the Netherlands herself. On more than one occasion, I could swear that a caught a whiff of tulips in the air.

Or maybe it was my new plug in room freshener.

The pacing in the beginning of the book is a bit slower and much of the storyline includes the kind of dyke drama one would expect a twenty-something to be experiencing. The pace picks up after Junior and her father embark on their trip, and the story mellows into an enjoyable journey through the streets of Antwerp and the Netherlands. The writing is clean and there was only one formatting error, a rare occurrence in the world of e-books.

Kate Christie takes her time developing the main characters in Family Jewels. While Junior’s character develops throughout the book, Kate does an admirable job by quickly inviting the reader into her world in such a way the reader can relate to her and her growing pains. Junior’s character immediately brings to mind people I have known, and readers may even see a bit of themselves in her character. While aspects of Junior’s character are revealed from the beginning, her father’s character develops more slowly. Ms. Christie initially provides little detail about Mr. Starreveld, encouraging the reader to cultivate their opinion based solely on Junior’s perception of him. As the story progresses, the author skillfully allows this character to become more multi-dimensional, allowing the reader to gain a deeper understanding of,  and empathy for, his character.

Family Jewels is more than a simple story about the relationship we have, or think we have with a family member. It is a story about how our perception impacts not only how we choose to interact with that individual, but how it often serves as a reflection of how we perceive ourselves. 

I give Family Jewels a solid 5.1 out of 6.0 on the Rainbow Scale

____________________________________________________

Book:  Tactical Pursuit

Author:  Lynette Mae

Publisher:  Regal Crest Enterprises, LLC

Let me just put this out there. Ordinarily, I am not a fan of sequels. First of all, my experience has been that oftentimes the sequel is not as good as the first book. And, secondly, the author has to walk a tightrope with the sequel, balancing the need to provide enough information so that those who haven’t read the first book aren’t lost, while not providing too much information and thus boring those who did.

Luckily for all of us, Lynette Mae is a talented tightrope walker.

I wonder if she has that listed on her resume?

Tactical Pursuit continues the story of Devon James and her friend Mac McKinley, characters first introduced in Lynette Mae’s debut novel, Faithful Service, Silent Hearts. Devon is working as a police corporal and SWAT officer in Florida after years of serving in the military. She is dedicated to her job, one that she does quite well. Her life has taken on a comfortable rhythm of work and spending time with her friends save for the nightmares that she still experiences ten years after leaving the military. When a chance encounter with rookie officer Jessie Kilbride leaves her flustered and more than a bit tongue tied, Devon begins to wonder if she is ready to make room in her life for something other than work.

As a mutual attraction between Devon and Jessie begins to grow, Devon must face demons that she has tried to leave in the past. It is an arduous task, especially in light of the connection that exists between the prime suspect in a string of recent crimes and a ominous adversary from Devon’s days in the military. Devon’s safety and that of the people she holds dear hangs in the balance as an elusive, maniacal killer seeks revenge. Devon will need to call upon every ounce of the skills she has honed over the years and rely on assistance from friends past and present if she is to have a future with the woman she loves.

In her book, Tactical Pursuit, Lynette Mae combines characters who are well developed, an interesting and fast paced storyline, and romantic elements to create a book easily able to stand alone on its own merits. That being said, this reviewer does recommend that those who have not already done so, read Faithful Service, Silent Hearts.

Lynette’s considerable breadth of knowledge about law enforcement is peppered in passages throughout the story, but the reader does not need to be able to distinguish a Glock from a glockenspiel in order to fully enjoy this book. The plot has moments of heart pounding action, which are offset well by the inclusion of romantic moments and scenes which illustrate the deep friendship shared by Devon and Mac.

Tactical Pursuit draws the reader in from the first page and keeps hold of the reader through the final page of the book. The pacing is steady throughout and the cast is a well rounded collection of both main and supporting characters. Tactical Pursuit is a solid offering from author Lynette Mae, who once again proves her skill as a talented storyteller. 

I am standing at attention and saluting as I give Tactical Pursuit a solid 5.3 out of 6.0 on the Rainbow Scale.

Faithful Service, Silent Hearts by Lynette Mae

Book:  Faithful Service, Silent Hearts

Author:  Lynette Mae

Publisher:  Regal Crest Enterprises

This week I’m taking a look at a debut novel by Lynette Mae that chronicles the life of a young lesbian soldier during a seminal time in American history.  The story Faithful Service, Silent Hearts deals with a young Army officer focused on the mission of identifying terrorists and keeping soldiers out of harm’s way, all the while trying to protect her heart and hide the secret of her sexuality during the homosexual witch-hunts of the Reagan Administration.

However, before I tuck into the overview of the story and my thoughts about it, I want to take a few minutes to talk about something close to my heart.  Yesterday morning, my beloved Aunt Jackie passed away.  She was 87 years old, and my siblings and I are the only family she had in the world.  When I was a baby, she would give me cold coffee from a spoon, and rub whiskey on my chest to help me breathe during asthma attacks. 

Aunt Jackie was at every birthday, Christmas Eve, and graduation; and she was one of only four people I asked to attend my baptism.  When I didn’t think I had enough money to go away to graduate school, she told me there was no way I was going to pass up THAT opportunity, and offered financial assistance without a second of thought.  The last time I saw her, she was in the hospital recovering from surgery.  I leaned down and she kissed me and said, “I love you, Mother.”   It didn’t matter that she was confused; the emotion was very real for both of us. 

I love you, Aunt Jackie – thank you for always being there for me.

And now, back to the regularly scheduled book review:  Faithful Service, Silent Hearts tells the story of Devon James, a studly young leader that very well could have been the face of the new Army.  Smart, clever, and dedicated, she took on every assignment with passion and clarity.  While on assignment at the Army Intelligence Center, she begins a lusty relationship with her roommate, the equally smart, clever, and dedicated rogue, Lieutenant Jillian Gray.  That is, until the witch-hunt begins, and Lt. Gray’s once-promising Army career is burned at the stake. 

The Marine Barracks, Beirut,10/23/83
Photo courtesy of the USMC

Lt. James is spared from discovery, and she continues her career, eventually hooking up with an old college friend and CIA Agent, Alex Sommers.  Both women find themselves walking a professional and emotional tightrope in Beirut until members of an Islamic Jihadist movement took the lives of 220 Marines, 18 sailors, and three soldiers in one act of barbarism.  Among the causalities of this harrowing day was Agent Sommers.  Broken hearted, and seriously wounded, Lt. James returns to the United States and finds herself both honored for her heroism, and targeted for her sexuality. 

Faithful Service, Silent Hearts is a truly compelling book that takes a unique look at lesbians in the military who skirted the legal policy of 10 U.S.C. § 654, which stated that homosexuality is incompatible with military service and that persons who engaged in homosexual acts or stated that they are homosexual or bisexual were to be discharged.

For the history buffs out there, that means before President Clinton’s ‘mine is bigger than yours’ to Congress with his signing of Defense Directive 1304.26, more popularly known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”.

It’s a pleasure to read a story about lesbians in the military that separates itself from the myriad books being released that deal with more contemporary Iraq/Afghanistan issues.  This story gives us a fresh look back at the not-so-distant past, and subtly reminds readers of some of the political decisions and questionable policies that directly lead us to where we are today. 

Specifically, I mean the perception of the United States abroad, the perception of women in combat, and the perception of gays and lesbians in the military. 

Ms. Mae’s main character, Devon James, is well written – professionally confident, yet personally vulnerable.  She is dedicated to her job, her soldiers, and her friends, but unsure how to truly give her heart away.  Yet, somehow she does, despite her best efforts not to.

The love affairs are artfully developed and believable, and the friendships and professional exchanges have a depth that speaks to authenticity.   The interactions and descriptions of the military and intelligence communities are simple and convincing, and delightfully don’t fall victim to cartoonish heroism or villainy.

The story is tightly written, well plotted, and free of gratuitous trips to the bully pulpit.  While it contains a handful of romantic and sexual encounters, the story does not stray into syrupy romance.  True, the reader wants the protagonist to find and keep the love of her life, but the story is more about a soldier walking a tightrope between two incompatible worlds.

Well, “perceived” incompatible worlds, that is…marines, soldiers, sailors, and airmen have shown us time and again how truly ridiculous that perception was and remains.

Lynette Mae is one of the brash and gifted new writers strutting into the world of Lesfic.  She’s talented and skillful with the insight and ability to tell a story we don’t recognize.  She shows us that we can have sexy, steamy, edgy, heart pounding fiction that feels fresh and new, and far removed from the mundane. 

If I were to point to one flaw in Faithful Service, Silent Hearts, it would be the pacing, which is a bit hurried toward the conclusion.  Still, the overall strength of this tale outweighs that minor blemish.

If you haven’t looked around lately, the theme of ‘Women in the Military’ is becoming a hot commodity in Lesfic, and for good reason.  We all love strong women and we all need heroes.

Let’s just say, they’re the new breed of tough and chewy butch with a gun – a .50 caliber, fully automatic, with armor-piercing-incendiary-tracer ammo, that is. 

Lynette Mae has given readers a thoughtful, solid story, a memorable protagonist, and a happy ending that is evenly tempered with hope and loss.  This is a compelling read, and one that is worth the investment in time and money.  I’m giving this intelligent, well-written story a solid 5.1 out of 6 on the Rainbow Scale.