Rosewood's Ashes

A wonderful book from Aileen Schumacher! This Floridian engineer and author manages to integrate her fascinating series characters with a very true historical tragedy in ROSEWOOD'S ASHES. The sad story of what happened to the African-American community of Rosewood, Florida shows how much the nation has progressed, I hope.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, a mystery set in current times with the events of 1923 when a white mob attacked a black town of Rosewood, Florida. The mystery unfolded well, covering both current happenings and past events. I found the flashback scenes fit into the story nicely, without being abrupt at all. Fascinating historical story, and I thought the relationship between Tory and David has matured quite nicely and believably.

Tory Travers is having a bad day--she's sick, pregnant, unsure what to do with her boyfriend, and she's got to go back to her family home because her father is in a coma after a hit-and-run accident. Or was it an accident? David Alvarez, her boyfriend, decides to come along. When they land in Florida, Tory's day gets worse. A young woman they met on the plane is killed by a speeding car. With Tory's reputation from her troubled youth, she is an immediate suspect. Although cop-Alvarez is able to turn off the pressure this time, he decides to use his spare time investigating the killing.The evidence (and author Aileen Schumacher's story) keeps returning to the tragic events of 1923 when a white lynch mob descended on the black town of Rosewood, burning it to the ground. Still, what possible connection could there be between an ancient racial injustice and contemporary murder? Schumacher does an excellent job balancing between the present and the past, drawing parallels, and letting the suspense of the horrors of 1923 add to the sense of danger in the present. ROSEWOOD'S ASHES is a fine mystery with enough twists and turns and red herrings to keep any reader interested. Where it excells, though, is in its descriptions of people and their relationships. Tory's relationship with her father and with Alvarez. Lissy's relationship with 'The Man,' and Alvarez's relationships with just about everyone.I recommend this book highly.

In a segregated section of Florida in 1923, a white woman from Summer accuses a black man from Rosewood of raping her. A lynch mob from all over white Summer want to find and kill the individual blamed for the rape. However, by the time the mob finished its grisly agenda, death reached double digits and Rosewood was burned to the ground.In the present, engineer Tory Travers receives a call informing her that her father was in a coma in a Gainesville hospital after a hit and run accident. A pregnant Tory and her lover El Paso special cases police officer David Alvarez land in Florida and people connected to Rosewood are dying. Alvarez investigates the rising homicide count while Tory stays by her father's side. Neither one is aware that a killer will try to murder both of them and others to keep certain Rosewood secrets are buried.This novel is the best Travers-Alvarez mystery yet released because the personal relationship does not take a backseat to the who-done-it. The witty repartee and the feelings flowing between the protagonists bring more depth to ROSEWOOD'S ASHES than the well written pervious novels. Juxtaposing the story of Rosewood against modern day events further lead to a compelling and complex tale worth reading.Harriet Klausner

Engineer/mystery writer Aileen Schumacher has developed an outstanding series featuring engineer Tory Travers. Murders with an engineering angle have also thrown the widowed mother of a teenage son into a burgeoning relationship with Detective David Alvarez. "Rosewood's Ashes" has Schumacher trying something very different. The background for this novel is the infamous and disgraceful Rosewood, FL massacre of the early 1920s. The author pulls off a coup as she uses three different time lines to develop her story. Never once does she lose her reader or the sense of where she is going with the story. The government of Florida has decided, many years too late, to make restitution to the survivors and descendants of the African-American town which was destroyed by white vigilantes. The story of Rosewood is told through the eyes of young Lissie from 1916 until the terrible night she witnesses the horror and is able to escape. Near the present time, Lissie, a nursing home resident, has no desire to talk to the historians, sociologists or reporters who come calling. One researcher, however, gets Miss Lissie to talk which she feels she must do for the sake of one individual about whom she has always cared deeply. It is after Lissie's death that Tory is forced to return to Gainesville, FL where her estranged father is in a coma following a hit and run accident. David comes with her as support to visit the man for whom she has good reason to feel animosity. On the plane trip to the Sunshine State, Tory and David meet a young woman who is working on the Rosewood project for the university. Tory discovers her father has pledged a small fortune to the Center for Heritage Studies at the university for the in-depth study. When the woman is killed, by yet another hit-and-run driver, in the parking lot of the airport, it just may be that there are people who want to stop all study of the past as it involves Rosewood. Another murder and surprising coincidences involving the ever-present white supremacists as well as some people of color who might have something to lose, add to the suspense and mystery. Schumacher, whose series has been one of my favorites since her first book, has stepped it up a notch and taken some chances with this masterful book and has succeeded with great conviction. This could easily have been a stand-alone novel. The parts featuring Lissie and the last years of Rosewood are moving and convincing. However, her many fans will be happy to see the return of Tory and David as well as being immediately taken aback by a rather surprising development in their relationship. "Rosewood's Ashes" can be savored as modern history, an indictment of man's continuing inhumanity to man, or a very satisfying installment in a superior mystery series that has not been appreciated as much as it should be. Once you read "Rosewood's Ashes," you'll want to read Schumacher's other books. Well, perhaps not "A Guide to Hazardous Materials Management," but cert