Poison pens can draw blood. And that is exactly why TV presenter Rebecca Jones hires private eye Kit O'Malley to investigate the threats against her. But the trouble with being tenacious, tough, and too smart for her own good is that everybody else wants her on their team.
As if trying to keep Rebecca alive and on the air wasn't enough, Kit is beset by a clutch of other people's catastrophes that require her very particular skills to resolve.
And, as Kit is the detective who can't say no, before she knows it she is up to her eyes in the worst that Australia's criminal minds can throw her way.
Money laundering, sordid sexual shenanigans, abduction, political sleaze, and murder among Melbourne's movers and shakers threaten to swamp Kit as she picks her way through the morass of double-dealing, treachery, and outright greed.
As if that's not enough, the beautiful and sexy Alex Casenove sweeps back into her life, reminding Kit that love is almost as deadly as hate and that murder never happens at a convenient time.
Private Investigator, Kit O’Malley, finds herself once again up to her eyeballs in what appears to be a straight forward investigation. In the beginning, television presenter, Rebecca Jones, hires Kit to investigate who is sending her a spate of threatening poison pen letters. But as Kit’s investigation gets underway, she finds that there are other factors worming their way into her investigation. Looking out for Rebecca and keeping her safe and able to go on air simply isn’t enough. Kit is besieged by one person after another requiring her services. Soon Kit is knee deep in cases, including those thrown up by the vilest criminals she’s ever had the misfortune to meet. Murder, sexual misdeeds, kidnapping. money laundering, political misdemeanours are just some of the things Kit encounters.
Will Kit be able to sort out each case or will it all be too much?
Amongst all the confusion, Alex Cazenove, Kit’s love interest, breezes back into Kit’s life. How can Kit possibly think of love amidst all the murder and mayhem?
Another well written and exciting book that follows directly on from Blood Guilt. Both books are standalones and can be read entirely separately. The one thing I especially liked about this book is that I didn’t have endless pages of repeated ‘catch up’ dialogue from the first book. It wasn’t needed. Personally, I would recommend you read Blood Guilt for the excellent story it is. No point in missing out.
This second book was even more exciting than the first. The many twists, turns, ups and downs kept me feverishly turning the pages until the end. It’s quite a long action packed book and I had a job to put it down.
There is one mystery after another and I was kept guessing at the ending. I never did figure it out. I liked the light heartedness and the humor in the book too between the characters. They interact so well together.
If you are looking for a good intriguing, gruesome, mystery murder, with a nice romance entwined that doesn’t over power the story, with believable characters, in my opinion, you’ll enjoy this book.
Take a generous helping of Elizabeth Pincus; combine with an equal portion of Kate Allen; add a dash of Joan Opyr and maybe, a just pinch of Randye Lordon. Put ‘em together and whattaya got? Not positive, but the enticing aroma is a lot like Lindy Cameron’s Bleeding Hearts, a Kit O’Malley mystery #2. I don’t mean to imply that Cameron’s work is in any way derivative, just that, sometimes, the best way to give others an idea of what abook is like is with examples with which they may be more familiar. Like Pincus’ Nell Fury, PI Kit O’Malley is feisty, funny, smart, sexy without trying, persistent, and flippant. Cameron’s writing is like Kate Allen’s in that almost every sentence holds the potential for a laugh, or at least a chuckle, The Joan Opyr resemblance is in the rather outre cast of characters, most particularly Kit‘s mother and her (Kit‘s) friend Bridgit. To be honest, I’m not really sure of the Randye Lordon connection; something just feels like it; maybe it's the comfortable feeling, like it's your next-door neighbor telling you about her day.
There are two separate mysteries, each involving people sending threatening messages; it's all a bit far-fetched, but still engaging once you buy into the improbable scenarios. But, it’s the quirky cast of characters, their idiosyncrasies and interaction which provide most of the reading pleasure: What outlandish thing will Kit’s mum say next? Will Kit and her inamorata Alex every manage to get together? There are lots of nice individual elements which combine to make the book even more enjoyable: the tension as Kit’s opportunities to be with Alex are continually frustrated. The tagline “Did you call me darling” which would be cheesy in some author’s hands, is charming here.
Cameron’s prose is fluid, witty and technically accomplished. Why 4 stars instead of 5, then? The main villain comes off as far more campy than menacing. This undermines the potential suspense of the ending. All in all, a very enjoyable and quick read. Highly recombined.
Kit O'Malley, medium-boiled gumshoe and former detective of the Melbourne PD finds herself in another unusual case - or, rather, cases - as two separate clients engage her services. In a journey to rival the first book, O'Malley takes the reader down the rabbit hole again into the seriously screwy world of incidental investigations.
All of the finest points of Blood Guilt are present, except perhaps for some of the more amusing sequences of metadrama. It's still there, and certainly is cause for a number of hilarious sequences as Kit works through her latest two cases, which keep her away from her novel.
The punchy, humorous dialogue - especially the internal dialogue between Kit and herself and her dialogue with the ever-diabolical nemesis in the form of her cat Thistle - is every bit the equal of the prior book and may, in fact, be even stronger in cases.
Well paced and filled with marvelous characters that are well developed and each holding their own idiosyncrasies, "Bleeding Hearts" is a truly enjoyable read from cover to cover.