Paula L. Woods Strange Bedfellows

Strange Bedfellows

Paula L. Woods

One World, Feb 2005, $23.95, 272 pp.

ISBN: 0345457021

In 1993 Los Angeles Police Department Detective Charlotte Justice investigates a drive by shooting of elderly toy company CEO Chuck Zuccari, who has connections to the highest Republican power bases, his six-month pregnant wife Alma, a business associate African-American Muslims Malik Shareef and his spouse. The case has plenty of side intrusions complicating matters including the governor as Zuccari is politically connected and the FBI is looking into the activities of Malik and his brother and Habiba.

She find these outside forces prove difficult to contend with, but complicating matters further is Zuccari's family who refuses to cooperate as they share plenty of anger that he married someone old enough to be his granddaughter and then impregnated her; making for two more heirs with better connections. Finally she has own problems as the case reminds her of her late husband and child gunned down thirteen years ago and her significant other and her family worry for her mental well being from job related stress and her internal organs from a diet of scotch and antacid tablets.

The fourth Justice police procedural is a fabulous tale with a strong investigation complicated by sidebar intrusions and a lack of cooperation. Charlotte is at her best struggling professionally in a male world, coping with the demons that still gnaw at her, and finally roadblocks from her superiors, stonewalling from those involved in the case, sympathetic pleadings from her family and lover, and the warnings from the feds. Still this brave female, scotch in hand, seeks to live up to her surname.

Harriet Klausner