Martin Talbot is told his mother, Judy, who has
Alzheimer's, is getting worse and the end of her life is
drawing near. Even though he's known the day would come,
he's still heartbroken to think that his once vibrant and
vivacious mother, who led a secret life as the Black
Stiletto, is close to dying. Nearly 12 months have gone by
since Martin uncovered his mother's past as the Black
Stiletto, and there are still so many unanswered questions.
Martin ponders if his birth was the reason she gave up her
Black Stiletto persona all those years ago. With two of
Judy's diaries left to read; one covering 1961 and the
other 1962, the year he was born, Martin realizes it's time
to finally read them.
In the fourth book, 1961, Martin discovers that Judy left
New York for Los Angeles after meeting the persuasive and
alluring Leo, a man with some dubious underworld
connections. As she gets to know others connected to Leo,
the Stiletto's new life in LA takes an ominous turn. And
the closing entry in her diary is an explosive one. Could
some of those connections now be a threat to Martin and his
family? We won't know the answer until the final diary
installment is read.
As the fourth book in a five-book series, Raymond
Benson's THE BLACK STILETTO: SECRETS & LIES grips the
reader's interest with further tales of this fearless, if
at times impulsive, woman who was ahead of her times. In
the Stiletto's diaries, historical facts in the late 1950s
and the early 1960s are interwoven nicely with her life and
how she was affected by those events. In the present,
dealing with what's revealed about his mother's past makes
life difficult for Martin, who tries to protect his
daughter Gina from the fallout. I'm truly hooked and can't
wait for the concluding chapter, THE BLACK STILETTO:
ENDINGS & BEGINNINGS, set for publication November 2014.
It is 1961 in the fourth book of the "Black Stiletto"
series. Judy, the Stiletto, meets Leo, a charismatic man
who convinces her to move to Los Angeles when she is "run
out" of New York by increasingly hazardous police heat. But
soon Judy suspects that Leo is not the white knight she
first thought.
Leo, who has connections with the West Coast mobs, has
plenty of skeletons in his closet. His mysterious sister,
Christina, who once served time for armed robbery, could
also be a threat to the Stiletto's new life in California.
Meanwhile, in the present, Alzheimer's-stricken Judy takes
a turn for the worse as Martin comes to grips with the
imminent end of his mother's life.
And when elements from the Stiletto's past once again
appear to threaten Martin's family, it is up to his
daughter Gina to step up and take matters into her own
hands. In a novel bristling with mysteries, secrets, and
lies, the Black Stiletto saga takes a dark left turn into
even more treacherous territory.
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