Secrets To The Grave

Tami Hoag's Secrets to the Grave is the second novel in Navarre/Leone/Mendez mystery series. Or, as library book spine sticker says: Danger/Suspense. I consider books like this mysteries ~ I think all mystery novels involve murders, so I seldom say: Murder Mystery. Yes, a lot of suspense in the novel and danger, but main objective of story is to find out whodunit and arrest the person.

I wondered why a person I thought was the murderer was not a main suspect. Then I was reminded of something said early on, and realized: oh that is why. I can not say more without giving away the ending, even though what was said early on brought back memories. Will let it go at that.

As mentioned in Deeper than the Dead post, the town of Oak Knolls has a women's center that serves, among others, homeless women. One, not from the shelter, was a young woman who called herself Star. That brought back a memory of my early days on the street; meeting and spending time with people I called the Bixby Park crew. Today I would not know the young woman who called herself Star is I fell over her.

As the name would imply, the Star that I knew slightly had to be center of everyone's attention; she was, the star! What I do remember about her, was she kept asking me what drugs I used. She did not believe me when I told her "Cigarettes and coffee, my drugs of choice." Since the crew drank a lot, she wondered why I did not. I wanted to keep my wits about me; in case I had to take flight or fight, thus shunned alcohol. No drowning my sorrows for me, thank you.

I vaguely remember having some fun, those early days, dancing with Star to music booming out of her portable radio or CD player.

Unrelated to homelessness, everyone probably has heard: Time heals all wounds. Two ladies disagreed with that concept; "The best we can hope for is that the wounds scar over well enough we don't feel them all the time. And we move on. We have to."  That reminded me of Bear getting angry at me. My wound still fresh ~ can only vaguely remember it now ~ every thing a reminder, I kept mentioning what I later called "The J-word". Bear was tired of it. Just as tired as I was of his constant repetition of who done him wrong. Only I never said so.

Telling of an old crime, a man raped a homeless woman and her ten-year-old daughter.

A woman thought if she "ever got  out of this" she would hire a personal trainer. Then, "Of course she would be destitute and homeless, but if she lived in her car, maybe she would be able to afford it."

A runaway "...had always heard that bums lived in Oakwoods Park. Maybe he would live there too."

The third book in this series was not available at branch library. Need to order it delivered there or take a trip downtown to Main, to get that and another Nikki/Leache novel. Tami Hoag has published quite a lot of novels. The branch library did have others by her, but did not want to start yet another series, least I start confusing players ~ or characters. Nice, though to find an another author who can hold my attention.