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No Accident

A clever beach read, this mystery will leave readers hoping for a return visit from its sharp man with a plan.

This offbeat, suspenseful page-turner proves that insurance investigations can be interesting.

When eight people end up dead after an “impromptu drag race” in Webb’s debut novel, everyone from the Los Angeles police to the insurance companies assume it was an accident. After all, Howard Cummings was racing another driver when he drove his red roadster into a pickup truck. But when former reporter Alex Fogarty, the insurance investigator for the company that insured Cummings, takes another look at the evidence, he realizes that Cummings didn’t actually start the three-car accident: The pickup truck hit the van ahead of it first, and Cummings’s car slid in underneath. When Alex takes his discovery to the police, they’re not interested, but Alex can’t let it go, even though he has plenty of his own problems to worry about—including the five houses he bought to flip but is now on the verge of losing. It turns out that the van involved in the pileup belonged to Liberty Industries, a big energy company with a famous chief executive who’s embroiled in a contentious divorce. Liberty Industries happened to hold corporate-owned life insurance policies on its employees who died in the crash: For any employee that dies, Liberty, not the employee’s relatives, get a payout. Was this a “well-established and innocent financing practice” or something more sinister? With Alex, Webb has created a funny, credible protagonist with a lingo all his own. Alex’s explanation, for example, of how crooks use the “swoop and squat” technique to “score a quick settlement” enlightens the reader while moving the plot along. Webb also has a knack for descriptive language. When, after surfing, Alex leaves the ocean and peels off his rubber bodysuit, Webb notes, “The empty rubber sleeves of his bodysuit hung away from his hips like vestigial limbs that shuddered when he moved.” Sometimes, though, Webb falls prey to overwriting. It’s not enough for a priest to look at Alex knowingly and realize that he’s carrying a gun in a church; Webb writes that the priest’s look “was the look of a man who understood cause and effect, of a man who recognized sin.” But the occasional melodramatic phrase doesn’t slow down an otherwise brisk, action-packed thriller.

A clever beach read, this mystery will leave readers hoping for a return visit from its sharp man with a plan.

Pub Date: May 10, 2013

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 321

Publisher: CreateSpace

Review Posted Online: July 8, 2013

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Mary's Song

From the Dream Horse Adventure Series series , Vol. 1

A short, simple, and sweet tale about two friends and a horse.

A novel tells the story of two spirited girls who set out to save a lame foal in 1952.

Mary, age 12, lacks muscle control of her legs and must use a wheelchair. Her life is constantly interrupted by trips with her widower father to assorted doctors, all of whom have failed to help her. Mary tolerates the treatments, hoping to one day walk unassisted, but her true passion involves horses. Possessing a library filled with horse books, she loves watching and drawing the animals at a neighboring farm. She longs to own one herself. But her father, overprotective due to her disability and his own lingering grief over Mary’s dead mother, makes her keep her distance. Mary befriends Laura, the emotionally neglected daughter of the wealthy neighboring farm owners, and the two share secret buggy rides. Both girls are attracted to Illusion, a beautiful red bay filly on the farm. Mary learns that Illusion is to be put down by a veterinarian because of a lame leg. Horrified, she decides to talk to the barn manager about the horse (“Isn’t it okay for her to live even if she’s not perfect? I think she deserves a chance”). Soon, Mary and Laura attempt to raise money to save Illusion. At the same time, Mary begins to gain control of her legs thanks to water therapy and secret therapeutic riding with Laura. There is indeed a great deal of poignancy in a story of a girl with a disability fighting to defend the intrinsic value of a lame animal. But this book, the first installment of the Dream Horse Adventure Series, would be twice as touching if Mary interacted with Illusion more. In the tale’s opening, she watches the foal from afar, but she actually spends very little time with the filly she tries so hard to protect. This turns out to be a strange development given the degree to which the narrative relies on her devotion. Count (Selah’s Sweet Dream, 2015) draws Mary and Laura in broad but believable strokes, defined mainly by their unrelenting pluckiness in the face of adversity. While the work tackles disability, death, and grief, Mary’s and Laura’s environments are so idyllic and their optimism and perseverance so remarkable that the story retains an aura of uncomplicated gentleness throughout.

A short, simple, and sweet tale about two friends and a horse.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Hastings Creations Group

Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2016

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ONCE UPON A GIRL

Therapeutic, moving verse from a promising new talent.

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Keridan’s poetry testifies to the pain of love and loss—and to the possibility of healing in the aftermath.

The literary critic Geoffrey Hartman once wrote that literature—and poetry, in particular—can help us “read the wound” of trauma. That is, it can allow one to express and explain one’s deepest hurts when everyday language fails. Keridan appears to have a similar understanding of poetry. She writes in “Foreword,” the opening work of her debut collection, that “pain frequently uses words as an escape route / (oh, how I know).” Many words—and a great deal of pain—escape in this volume, but the result is healing: “the ending is happy / the beginning was horrific / so let’s start there.” The book, then, tracks the process of recovery in the wake of suffering, and often, this suffering is brought on by romantic relationships gone wrong. An early untitled poem opens, “I die a little / taking pieces of me to feed the fire / that keeps him warm / you don’t notice that it’s a slow death / when you’re disappearing little by little.” The author’s imagery here—of the self fueling the dying fire of love—is simultaneously subtle and wrenching. But the poem’s message, amplified elsewhere in the book, is clear: We go wrong if we destructively give ourselves over to others, and healing comes only when we turn our energies back to our own good. Later poems, therefore, reveal that self-definition often equals strength. The process is painful but salutary; when “you’re left unprotected / surrounded by chaos with nothing you / can depend on / except yourself / and that’s when you gather the pieces / of the life you lost / and use them to build the life you want.” The “life you want” is an elusive goal, and the author knows that the path to self-definition is fraught with peril—but her collection may give strength to those who walk it.

Therapeutic, moving verse from a promising new talent.

Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-72770-538-6

Page Count: 196

Publisher: CreateSpace

Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019

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