Playing Dead by Julia Heaberlin

Playing Dead: A Novel, Julia Heaberlin. New York: Random House Publishing Group, 2012. ebook, 293 pps.


     Playing Dead is for those travel buffs who enjoy a good fiction read with some mystery and intrigue thrown in. The setting for this one travels from Ponder Texas to ChiTown flawlessly. There is a mafia dude in it, a crazy dead mother, some other dead relatives, a stud, and some horses to boot. I was hooked from the first page.

     The narrator Tommie McCloud like me "learned early that nothing is what it seems." (page 9). The voice is both folksy and serious at the same time. I related to Tommie and her sister Sadie. I couldn't help but like them.

     The description of Ponder, Texas reminded me of several little sleepy Texan towns I spent some time in years ago [but I won't tell you what I was doing in them] complete with horses, a downtown, and pick-up trucks. And Chicago was very much the Chicago that I visited several years ago. 

     I've only seen wind farms in Maine but it was quite easy for me to transpose them into a Texan landscape. Bits of Texan history fleshed out Ponder for me, a place I could live in if I ever want to.

     Tommie's mother is certifiably crazy. Her dad and granddad are both dead. A brother was killed years ago. Some of her dad's friends are still in the background [and sometimes the foreground] watching over Tommie and defending her welfare. Being Texas, there were guns. I like guns.

sapphoq reviews says: Julia Heaberlin has written an intriguing book in Playing Dead. This is chick lit at its finest. Highly recommended.

All He Saw Was The Girl by Peter Leonard

All He Saw Was The Girl, Peter Leonard. Stamford Ct: The Story Plant, 2011. e-book, 250 pps. inc. an excerpt from another book.

     Chip [the rich kid] and McCabe [not rich] are Americans who are attending college in Italy. They wind up in an Italian prison. McCabe is the outspoken one who gets Chip's property back from a sleazy character. First mistake. They get out. A picture of Chip and a picture of McCabe appear in the newspaper with their names inverted.

     Then there is a foxy woman who perhaps becomes far more trouble than she is worth, a couple of kidnappings, car chases, and general chaos.

     Ray from Detroit in the Secret Service comes home to find his wife Sharon up and left him. He tears off to Italy in hopes of finding her and her illicit lover. He finds more than he bargains for.

     The two story-lines converge and some loose ends are tied up. Amusing and well-worth the time to read it.

sapphoq reviews says: A couple of steamy sex scenes so not good for sub-adults or the squeamish. [I found them tastefully done myself]. Excellent book with some humor and lots of action. Well done and highly recommended.