Susan Wittig Albert ,Bleeding To Death

Bleeding To Death

Susan Wittig Albert

Berkley, Apr 2006, $23.95, 304 pp.

ISBN 0425207994

When Pecan Spring's resident and entrepreneur China Bayles is asked by her stepson's principal to investigate high school football Coach Tim Duffy, she is unable to say no because she hates sexual predators who abuse their power with a passion. An anonymous caller claims Tim left his job in Friendship because Margarita Lopez was talking to the school and the police about his seduction of her daughter Angela using his position, power and authority to seduce her. Angela tore up all evidence of the affair and blamed herself because the coach said she was sending out signals that he couldn't resist.

Ironically, Angela goes to college in Pecan Springs, and China learns that the coed met a high school student who was being hit on by Coach Duffy. She doesn't want to go to the authorities for fear nobody would believe that the popular worldly coach would seduce a minor. Angela's roommate tells China that Angela was going to force him to stop his sexual deprivations, but instead she commits suicide in a high priced hotel room. There are too many questions that are left unanswered, but China is determined to find them so Angela can obtain justice, even in death.

This is another entertaining, exciting and enjoyable China Bayles mystery, in which the heroine discovers that she has a half brother who wants something from her, and learns that her buddy Ruby's boyfriend is not what he seems. There remain open cases that will probably be dealt with in the next book in this series, and fans will be eagerly awaiting the next installment in this incredibly refreshing series. The heroine, a former lawyer, is a very likable character, and when she investigates something, readers find her actions very plausible. Susan Wittig Albert has written a creative who done it in which things and people are not as they seem.