Stealing for a Living

Stealing for a Living is much than a mystery. The character at the center of the story is razor-sharp and a compelling narrator. Great ideas throughout, and a great plot, too.

This book is filled with rich characters, starting with Emma Price and Lawrence Solomon and including even the seemingly minor characters. The story takes you way beyond who killed Dr. Eleanor Hammond, a doctor who performs abortions. It examines the various hatreds and prejudices of humans in general and is full of insight and compassion. An excellent read.

I have not read this book. Therefore, I have awarded it a Harriet Klausner 5. But any book, without exception, reviewed by Harriet Klausner is tripe. And without exception, any review written by Harriet Klausner is tripe. This lowbrow woman couldn't get past the opening page of an Iris Murdoch novel. Don Francisco Coffee

Naomi Rand has joined the small number of authors whose books I buy in hardback because I can't wait for the paperback edition. This is the second book in her series about Emma Price, an investigator for the Capitol Defender's Office. When we last left Emma, she was 40, pregnant, about to be divorced, and beginning a new relationship with a New York City detective, Lawrence Solomon. Over a year has passed and now Emma is dealing with a baby and a troubled pre-teen at home, a difficult boss at work, and building her relationship with Solomon. While Emma is busy trying to find mitigating circumstances so that her obviously guilty client can avoid the death penalty, Solomon is investigating a murder of a social activist who was an important person in Emma's past. Both cases are interesting and we learn more about Emma who is a richly drawn, complex character whom I like very much and am eager to encounter when the next book in the series is published.

Though she raises a toddler and is dealing with her teenage son arrested for shoplifting, Emma Price knows that her time in Brooklyn as a single mother feels like heaven compared to her current assignment as a New York City Capital Defender's Office investigator. Emma is to uncover anything that will enable Roland Everett to avoid the obvious death penalty. When his injury compensation claim was rejected Roland retaliated by killing three people.While Emma struggles with finding anything to help her "client", her lover, Brooklyn Homicide Detective Laurence Solomon, is working on the execution of abortion-rights activist Dr. Eleanor Hammond. Emma knew Eleanor and the woman's family when she was a child, but found nothing redeeming in any of her relationships with any of the Hammond brood so she wonders why she thinks a friend was killed. Though an anti-abortion group claims the credit, Emma believes that this homicide is more domestic in nature and begins her own inquiries.In some ways STEALING FOR A LIVING is a simplistic look at evil, yet paradoxically that is why the second Emma Price novel (see THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY) is a superb investigative tale as Naomi Rand focuses on the rationalization for murder justifiable in the killers' minds. Fans of urban mysteries will appreciate this novel as Emma struggles on all fronts, whether it is at home in Brooklyn, in her competition with her lover on the Hammond homicide, or failing to find a redeeming quality for a malevolent bigot who she believes deserves death.Harriet Klausner