With over 50 years in writing reading and editing in one form or another, the last decade or so with books, I have found that some type of formatting issues can be very disruptive...
Night Sorrows is a complex, multi-faceted story and the author has worked hard to keep all sub-plots in the reader's mind... That's where the ebook issues occurred... Ebooks allow a lot of flexibility for the reader, but at the same time, it often affects the original typed story...In this book, Craig had inconsistent results for change of scene - I might say this is the worst problem faced by creators of ebooks and oftentimes fails... Instead of belaboring the reading problems, I just want to recommend that a writer use an actual break, such as ###, to show scene change. Since there is no consistency in a page, there is no way to effectively use space lines... The problem results in jarring mind jerks as scenes change without knowing and an entirely different topic and set of characters begin... I might add that too many scene changes in a row can also be disruptive..
Readers may decide whether this is important to them; the book would have been given a 5 by me, if not for the reading problems that occurred...
Night Sorrows:
A Rebekah McCabe Mystery
By Bill Craig
“I heard a noise and I turned, then my head felt like it exploded. I saw stars and then everything went black. I don’t know how long I was out, but when I came to, I felt helpless. It was hard to make my body function. I saw blood on the wall. I wondered if it was mine at first, but then I finally realized that it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. Because, while it felt like my brains might be leaking out, they couldn’t be splattered down the wall for me to be alive,” Rebekah McCabe said.
“You don’t like feeling helpless, do you?” Alexus Prince asked. “No, I don’t.”
“So, feeling helpless . . . what did that make you feel like?” “Like I was a goddamn failure at the only job I ever truly loved,” McCabe replied.
“Your work is very important to you?”
“It is. It defines me.”
“Have you ever considered doing anything else?”
“Not really, no. I like what I do.”
“Even when you fail?”
“I never said I failed. I caught the bad guy in the end.”
“But your client was still dead. You were hired to keep her alive.”
“I brought her killer to justice. I count that as a win,”
McCabe sighed.
“Interesting. I see our time is about up. I want you to think about this and tell me what you might have done differently, given the chance,” Alexus Prince told her.
“There was nothing to do differently. I caught the bad guy. That was my job.”
“It was, but that became your job only after your client was killed.”
“It did. I don’t let things like that stop me from doing what I was hired to do. Caroline England hired me to find out who wanted to kill her. I did that, and then I made sure that the son of a bitch was prosecuted.”
McCabe looked over at Alexus Prince. The psychiatrist was shorter and smaller boned than her, with thick black hair that seemed to hint at a Greek heritage. Her brown eyes were large behind her designer glasses, her face impassive, as she looked back at McCabe. Her make-up was minimal, her natural beauty didn’t require much enhancements. She was wearing a pair of silk grey linen slacks with a maroon silk dress shirt. Her nails were stylishly polished in a two-tone shade of pale blue and white.
“I want to help you, Rebekah, but I can’t if you are going to fight me every step of the way. Work with me instead of against me and maybe we can get the nightmares to stop,” Alexus told her. “Okay, I’ll try. Coming to see you isn’t easy for me. I’m not used to talking about my feelings with a stranger, even though we are friends.”
“Is there someone you are comfortable talking with?”
“Yes. My Pap, back in Texas.”
“Then give him a call, Rebekah. See what advice he has to offer. It might even help,” Dr. Prince said.
“I’ll think about it. Same time next week?” Rebekah asked.
“I’ll make sure that you’re scheduled.”
“Thank you, Doc. I’ll see you then,” McCabe replied, standing and walking towards the door.
“This will get easier, Rebekah,” Dr. Prince called after her.
“I hope so,” McCabe sighed, before stepping through the door and closing it behind her. McCabe looked at her watch. She needed to get to the office and hopefully, she would get a new case to take her mind off what had happened to her in Caroline England’s apartment last month. Rebekah McCabe was sipping from her Starbuck’s cup of coffee when the door to her office opened and a very elegantly appointed, yet casually attired woman walked in. She was a middle-aged woman, with blonde highlights in her hair and professionally styled makeup. She wore expensive designer jeans, an expensive designer tee-shirt, and expensive Adidas sneakers. She was very well put together. Her eyes were a worried blue and her mouth was a tight red lipstick line across her face.
“Can I help you? Bekah asked. “My daughter is missing. I need you to find her,” the woman said, flatly.
“Okay. What is your name?” McCabe asked. McCabe was a tall long- haired redhead with jade green eyes.
“Jeanette Larson,” the woman said. Bekah wrote it down. “What’s your daughter’s name?”
“Courtney Larson.”
“How old is she?”
“She’s sixteen. She looks older, something of an early bloomer, like I was. Beautiful brown hair and brown eyes. She’s about five-foot-five-inches tall, maybe a hundred and twenty pounds,” Jeanette sighed.
“What was she wearing the last time you saw her?”
“Blue jeans with rips in the legs, you know like the kids wear these days, and a pink tee shirt. She has on BCBG flip flops and had her purse with her, a Dolce & Gabbana. It is made of jean material, too, with sequins on it” Jeanette explained. It was clear the woman just expected Rebekah to know the names of the attire that her daughter was wearing. But, that didn’t put off Bekah.
“Do you know why she left?” McCabe asked, raising her eyes at the coveted designer names worn by a teenage girl.
“We had a fight. I don’t like her boyfriend. He is a f****** abusive jackass.”
“Except Courtney doesn’t see it that way?”
“No, she doesn’t. She thinks that she loves him.”
“You think she ran off with him?”
“Maybe. All I really know is that she is gone, and he is her boyfriend.”
“That’s a lot, in and of itself.”
~~~
In announcing Night Sorrows, Craig declares that it might be his best book yet. I have not previously read anything by this author, but I can confirm that the story is very good... As the book opens, we meet the main character, Rebekah McCabe. She is meeting with her psychiatrist about how she is doing after her last case in which her client had been killed...
We are also meeting one of Rebekah's new clients--Alexus Prince, her psychiatrist, early in the book, realizes she may have a stalker! And soon seeks help from Rebekah...
But Rebekah has just accepted a doozy of a case. A young girl's mother has come to seek her help in finding her. Her daughter has left home, possibly with a boyfriend. What Rebekah finds out is much worse...Giving away one thing that happens helps illustrate both the complexity and dangerous situation the young girl is in... You see, her boyfriend, owed money, and gave his girlfriend to them as collateral until he could get the money. You guessed it, by that time, Courtney Lawson was much more valuable than what her boyfriend owed him, so he was killed when he tried to free Courtney... A horrible situation suddenly got worse...
Courtney Lawson had already been taken by the entire group that now owned her and they figured she would be worth much more when they turned her out, drugged...
Rebekah used to be a cop, a good cop. We don't know exactly why she left, but there is some trouble between her and her former boss...could it be that he wanted a relationship that was not to be? Rebekah is now dating another officer so is able to gain access to information as needed. Rebekah is tough and is willing to tackle anything that comes her way. But I liked the fact that she was also undergoing counseling to help her deal with the dangerous life she had chosen...
We learn that she is from Texas and the rest of the family are Texas Rangers...They have become distant when she chose not to stay with the family legacy. All except Pop, who is a wonderful character that comes to clear his granddaughter's name... You see, her old boss had named her as a person of interest for the killing of the boyfriend, who was murdered soon after she'd met with him... Rebekah immediately goes rogue and moves in with a former retired Texas Ranger, who turns out to be the contact to get Pop on a plane...The two of them working together was one of the highlights of the book!
And while Rebekah and Pop works the missing girl case, her boyfriend cop, Mario provides protection for Alexis Prince, who definitely is being stalked...
Of course, Rebekah has gotten to know people...one of which is the head of the Russian Mafia, who agrees to get information on who might be dealing in Human Trafficking... Bodies start falling and Rebekah is being sought not only by the police but is now known by all those criminals who are involved!
And just when they find where the young girls are being held, one of the men holding her escapes and takes her with him...
The investigation(s) are well written and the action is fairly hot and heavy right from the first. For me, though, it was the personal life situations of Rebekah that pulled everything together and gave it the emotional impact that touches readers and has them looking for more... McCabe is a winning new series character...
I'm hoping the author takes the time to correct the setting separation issue and I'll be happy to increase the ranking to a five-star response... I'm still going to highly recommend it at this time, based on the storyline itself... Do check it out...
GABixlerReviews
I taught myself to read by age 4 and by age 6 I had started writing my own stories. I published my first novel at age 40, so it only took me 34 years to become an overnight success. Now at age 55, I have approximately 55 novels in print. I'm a single father with custody of a very energetic 10 year old son as well as his three older brothers and sisters. I have a large number of grandchildren and 1 great grand child.
I spent many years doing all sorts of jobs and learned something from each of them. Life is a constant journey and learning experience. Every bruise every scar we bear is a testament to what we have endured and forges us into the person that we are.
All of my characters tend to grow through what they endure, so I have translated some of my experiences into theirs or to imagine theirs. I feel this makes them very relatable to the average reader and makes the reader care about what happens to them. While my mysteries seem to sell the best I still enjoy writing pulp adventure and science fiction and westerns. Look for a new mystery series later this year!
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