Lifeblood
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- $22.99
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- $22.99
Publisher Description
Rachel Chavez, a recovering alcoholic, owns and lives in an apartment on the top floor of a parking garage in downtown Los Angeles. She leases parking space and the use of the rooftop helicopter pad to nearby businesses. Tough but vulnerable, she is struggling to stay sober and keep her business financially afloat.
Horrified when she discovers two unconscious young Mexican boys locked in an apparently abandoned van in the garage, she rushes them to the emergency room. Doctors declare one dead on arrival. The other, dehydrated but alive, is admitted to the hospital. But when Rachel checks back the next day, the Medical Center has no record of either child.
Wary of the police because her own checkered past includes a DWI and arrest for drug possession, Rachel's determination to find an explanation becomes an obsession that meshes with a search for her own Mexican roots, creating a problem in her relationship with her fiance Hank, a workaholic water quality engineer, wants to marry her when his divorce finally comes through. But now Rachel isn't certain marriage is for her.
She relies on emotional support from her friends, an eclectic band of misfits and outsiders: Irene, a homeless fortuneteller, Goldie, the big-hearted leader of the late-night cleaning crew of mentally handicapped workers, and Rachel's dad Marty, a compulsive gambler. She's delighted when the hospital leases parking space for staff, relieving her of financial worries. But her life doesn't become easier. It quickly becomes very complicated. And dangerous.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Likable Rachel Chavez, a recovering alcoholic who lives above the parking garage she owns in downtown L.A., displays curiosity, grit and stamina in Rudolph's less than successful sequel to Thicker Than Blood (2005). After Rachel discovers two young Mexican children locked in a van in her garage, the action jerks from one episode to another, connected only by fragile threads. Rachel rushes the children to nearby Jefferson Hospital, where she's told that one is dead but the other, severely dehydrated, will be admitted. When Rachel returns the next day, the hospital has no record of either child's existence. Massive old Jefferson turns out to have almost as many secrets as it does corridors, and Rachel's attempts to find the surviving child stir up a hornet's nest. Rachel's allies blunt, caring Goldie, who runs a nighttime cleaning crew, and homeless fortuneteller Irene are solidly drawn characters always ready with advice and more substantive assistance, but Rudolph's unconvincing plot doesn't give any of them room to shine.