Deadly Blessings
An Alex St. James Mytstery
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- $5.99
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
It's not often Alex St. James has a story this tantalizing fall into her lap, only to have it snatched away again. As news researcher at Midwest Focus Television in Chicago, she'd been set to interview a young Polish immigrant woman, pregnant by a Catholic priest.
When the woman is found murdered, and Alex tries to investigate, her boss abruptly reassigns her to a fluff piece, so he can give the hot murder story to the station owner's nephew. But anyone who knows Alex also knows that like Fate, she'll find a way.
Acting without authority and without assistance, she continues to investigate, making some very powerful people in the Chicago Archdiocese uneasy. Suddenly Alex finds herself in the middle of a plot so sinister and far reaching, that the very next thing she might hear are her own Last Rites.
PRAISE FOR DEADLY BLESSINGS:
"Julie Hyzy's riveting mystery, Deadly Blessings, launches appealing sleuth Alex St. James in a twisty, absorbing, headline-current case. First rate." -Carolyn Hart
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Hyzy's debut cozy, the latest assignment for 30ish researcher Alexandrine "Alex" St. James, who works for a Chicago TV news show, leads to an expos of area hair salons, one of which turns out to be a front for a prostitution ring. Meanwhile, Alex's live-in lover proves to be a cad, but a new hunk at work seems interested in keeping company with her after office hours. Some of the details we learn about Alex feel extraneous, as if Hyzy plopped a writing-workshop character development exercise in the middle of the book (why we're introduced to her sister with Williams syndrome, for example, is never made entirely clear). While the ultimate (titular) connections between the prostitution ring and the Catholic Church are timely, the hints of anti-Catholic propaganda, la Maria Monk, may leave a bad taste in some readers' mouths. Blurbs from Carolyn Hart and Annette Meyers, however, will alert their fans to a new author who, hopefully, will improve with practice.
