A journalist is murdered in pursuit of a story. Can his colleague solve the crime before becoming the next victim?
Reporter Jessica Curtis is shocked when her mentor and friend his murdered while investigating a story. When her editor tells her to use Joe's notes and get his story ready for publication, she goes one step farther. She decides to follow in his footsteps in hopes of identifying his killer. When she gets too close, her own life is on the line.
MURDER ONCE REMOVED has a great plot that really kept me guessing throughout. The story Joe was working on involved the death of an art dealer, and the same handful of figures are suspects in Joe's murder. Author Roz Russell created really unique characters, too. We -- and Jessica -- know one of them is a two-time killer, and it really could be any one of them.
The disappointing part of the book is Jessica. She's supposed to be a reporter, but when she talked to the detective for the first time, it's like she's a secretary or an intern, so excited to be talking to a real policeman about a story. She gets way too close to one of the suspects, and it's like she doesn't have any real control over the decision. More than once, I had to stop myself from throwing the book across the room.
If you enjoy a well-plotted mystery and don't mind a stupid main character who survives through sheer luck, MURDER ONCE REMOVED may be the novel for you.
A reporterβs mentor is killed while investigating a murder
and she is quickly put on the trail to break the story
open. When she finds herself over her head in a dangerous
world of treachery, greed, power, and revenge, it is going
to take all of her ingenuityβand a lot of helpβif sheβs
going to solve the case and make it out alive. A first-
rate page-turner filled with mounting, almost unbearable
suspense, Roz Russellβs debut looks deep into the inner
dimensions of the artistic mind to ask: is murder a form
of art?
Joe Taylor, the leading investigative reporter for the
Albuquerque Post, has mentored Jessica Curtis for the past
six years. But now Joe's deadβmurderedβand the only thing
Jessica knows about the story heβd been working on, the
Michael Lange murder, is that it happened three years ago
and the killer has never been found. Now the investigation
is hers and sheβs about to realize she was a lot safer
when she knew a lot less.
A high profile art dealer and construction entrepreneur in
Santa Fe, Lange had dirt on every friend and foe in the
tawny northern New Mexico cityβand he wasnβt afraid to use
it to his advantage. And when the body count rises and the
danger escalates, Jessica is no closer to finding the
murderer and everyone remains a suspectβincluding the
enigmatic artist she has begun an affair with. As she
scrambles to stay alive and break the story open, Jessica
must answer the ultimate question: can she do so before
the killer adds her to the list of victims?
A mystery novel that explores the power of art, Russell
delivers a captivating meditation on fate, the
inevitability of certain life events, and the cascading
consequences of one act as it influences everything that
happens afterwards. Perfectly paced with engaging
characters, razor sharp turns and surprising twists,
Murder Once Removed is a taut, suspenseful mystery that
will keep you guessing until the final, explosive
revelation
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