A Silver Medallion
A Crystal Moore Suspense #2
James R. Callan
Pennant Publishing, May 2016
ISBN 978-0692679227
Trade Paperback
A Mexican woman shows up at Crystal’s grandmother’s house saying that she’s escaped from a man’s house where she was kept as a slave. There’s another woman who won’t leave the slave situation because she’s been threatened with harm to her children who are being kept captive in Mexico. Crystal’s parents died when she was only seven, and the thought of the youngsters being separated from their mother won’t let her sleep. She sets out, without much of a plan, to free the mother and her children.
Crystal Moore is one of those heroines you just want to yell at, “Don’t do that! Don’t go there! Listen to your best friend, your grandmother, your boyfriend, the police, and that big, tough guy and his wife in Mexico. You’re going to get yourself killed!”
It’s the reader’s good fortune that James Callan’s sleuth doesn’t listen. We get to follow her quest into danger zones. She’s the heroine, and we know she’ll escape or be rescued, but wait… How will she survive when she gets herself into such impossible predicaments?
We almost have to create a new category for this mystery—cozy thriller. We love the main characters. There is an amateur sleuth, and her job is an important aspect of the story. But the lurking danger creates suspense as Crystal tries to save these young Mexican women and children who have been coerced into slavery. Read A Silver Medallion in order to experience delightful, cozy situations in towns and rural areas in southern Texas and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Don’t expect all relaxation, though. Your fingers won’t have a minute’s rest as you turn pages, and your shoulders will tighten from the suspense every time Crystal turns a corner.
Reviewed by Joyce Ann Brown, September 2016.
http://www.joyceannbrown.com
Author of cozy mysteries: Catastrophic Connections, Furtive Investigation and Nine LiFelines, the first three Psycho Cat and the Landlady Mysteries.
Buried Under Books 