Redemption
Laurel Dewey
The Story Plant, Jun 2009, $24.95
ISBN: 9780981608754

Chain smoker and chain drinker Jane Harder quit the Denver police department to become a private investigator. However, her effort to go private has somewhat failed because of her alcoholic addiction. Jane joins AA in hopes that the touch me feel me kick butt me meetings help her stay sober long enough to solve a case that brings in money.

Katherine "Kit" Clark comes over to Jane who is outside the AA meeting place smoking. She recognizes the cop from when Jane appeared on Larry King Live last year. Kit comes across as crazy so Jane tries to escape back to the meeting until the woman offers her $5000 to investigate the abduction, rape and murder of her fourteen year old granddaughter over ten years ago in California. The convicted killer Lou Peters was released on a legal technicality. Though she needs the money, the case comes too close to home with her own family history of abuse, but when Kit explains she is dying from cancer and believes Lou has kidnapped a tweener, Jane is ready to go immediately to Northern California.

As apparently with PROTECTOR (not read by me), Jane remains a kick butt heroine who has not broken the abuse cycle handed down from her paternal grandfather through her father to her; instead she has detoured it from abusing spouses, siblings, and offspring as her dad did to self flagellation through smoking, drinking, and profanity. Thus she has met her match in Kit. Although Jane's behavior at times overwhelms the otherwise super story line with her excesses, fans will enjoy this powerful suspense thriller as the time is running out on her ally and on the twelve year old victim.

Harriet Klausner