Shot Girl
Karen E. Olson
Obsidian, Nov 2008, $6.99
ISBN: 045122549X

New Haven Herald police reporter Annie Seymour is talked into attending a bachelorette party at the Rouge Lounge where a male strip show will highlight the gala. She is stunned to find her ex-husband Ralph Seymour as the bar's manager, a con artist who tricked people out of their money when he wrote fake articles for a newspaper. When Annie hears shots, she runs outside to find Ralph looking better dead than when he was alive.

Annie's friend police officer Tom takes her to headquarters because the bullets came from a gun like hers. It is confiscated by the cops as evidence once ballistic testing proves it a certainty. However, she is freed when it is determined Ralph died from a heart attack not bullets. Annie finds herself plunged in a world of drugs, prostitution and gun selling while someone has her watched closely to insure she never learns the truth; if perchance she does she will be reunited with her ex.

Karen E. Olson has written a thought provoking journalistic investigative thriller in which it is hard to ascertain which side of the law some folks are on. The support cast fleshes out the plot (no pun intended) while Annie deals in a believable manner with her best friend, her ex-friend and her former spouse (both alive and dead in his case). 'Shot Girl' addresses social issues inside the context of an amateur sleuth mystery.

Harriet Klausner