Hot Case

Detective Shelley Caldwell can't believe that the body of LaTonya Sanford could just disappear right in front of her, but it has and thanks to that disappearing trick, Shelley is now teaching classes at the Academy instead of out on the streets finding LaTonya's killer. Shelley's twin sister, Silke, calls to let her know that another girl has been found dead and like LaTonya, her body disappeared. Shelley knows the only way to find out what the connection between the two girls' murders is to go undercover as Silke at the local Goth bar, Heart of Darkness. There Shelley meets the enigmatic Jake DeAtley, but is he a friend or a potential suspect? Shelley knows evil exists, but is she prepared to accept that the murderer she seeks might be a vampire? Patricia Rosemoor does a wonderful job of pulling the reader into the Goth scene. The paranormal elements are well done and don't override the overall mystery to be solved. The dialogue is quick and laugh-out-loud funny. The interaction between Silke and Shelley is fun and I'm hoping that we will eventually get a story that focuses on Silke. Jake is extremely sexy and the chemistry between him and Shelley sizzles on the page. The only draw-back is the first person narration. The story flips between being told by Shelley and then through the eyes of other characters in the third person. Sometimes, it took me out of the story, but only momentarily, as Ms. Rosemoor does an excellent job of re-immersing the reader. All-in-all a fun and fast read and does the Silhouette Bombshell line proud. --Shelly Tavenner, official reviewer at www.allromancewriters.com.

Following a tip Chicago Violent Crimes Unit Detective Shelley Caldwell finds the murdered body of LaTonya Sanford drained of blood. She calls it in, but a fog engulfs the corpse; when it clears there is neither body nor any blood at the scene. Shelley has been transferred to the police academy where she instructs new recruits as no one believed that she saw a body vanish into the air, but is considering quitting the force though that would hurt her mom, a district commander. However, when her twin sister Silke desperately calls Shelley insisting she found a corpse of a friend, she rushes tot he scene. Once again the body vanished. This time she knows she did not see things that were not there. Shelley gores undercover posing as Silke to gain entrance to the exotic e Goth club Heart of Darkness for there she feels is a link to some weird supernatural happening, but sinking her teeth into the case without backup or sanctioning could prove deadly. Readers will enjoy this supernatural police procedural with a shade of romance. The story line grips the reader from the moment that Shelley "loses" her corpse and her informer is also missing. The tale never lets up until the climax as Shelley digs deep into a weird world that she knows should not exist. Besides a fantastic lead protagonist, the key to Patricia Rosemoor's super tale is that the paranormal feels bona fide due to the inquiries of the lead cop on the trail of a HOT CASE. Harriet Klausner