The Silent Bride

April Woo #7

by Leslie Glass

With the wedding of her own close friend rapidly approaching, NYPD detective April Woo and her partner, homicide specialist Mike Sanchez, race against time to find a madman who is targeting New York City's glamorous young brides, cutting them down in the midst of the wedding ceremony. Original.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, Mystery Thriller, New York

379 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published June 1, 2002

About the author

LESLIE GLASS's new book, the Mother Daughter Relationship Makeover is a memoir and exploration of the issues that drive mothers and daughters (and also sons) apart. Her experience as founder and editor of Reach Out Recovery, the online wellness and recovery magazine, inspired her to move beyond her beloved April Woo mystery series and focus on helping people by writing recovery books for people of all ages. Since 2011, she has produced two award winning documentaries, The Secret World of Recovery, and The Silent Majority and developed a website with followers from all over the globe wanting to know more about addiction, recovery, relationships, and health. Reach Out Recovery has more than 1500 original articles.

In her early career Leslie worked in publishing and has written for a variety of media. She was a journalist at New York magazine and a short-story and feature writer for Cosmopolitan and Woman’s Own in Great Britain. A playwright and the author of the critically acclaimed mystery series featuring NYPD Detective Sergeant April Woo, Glass is also the author of Over His Dead Body, Sleeper, The Teen Guide to Health, Find Your True Colors in 12 Steps, The 8 C's That Help Me Be All Right.
She lives in Sarasota, Florida.

Series
* April Woo Mystery

Reviews

[Peggy Blair · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this author! I am devouring her entire series (I had to buy copies on Abebooks.com because most of it's out of print. LOVE her.

[Susanne Beyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hat mich nicht ganz überzeugt.

[Plum-crazy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A young jewish girl is killed by a snipers bullet...at her own wedding. This is soon followed by the death of another young bride at a posh society wedding. Nothing seems to link the two crimes...other than they were both about to marry.
April Woo & homicide specialist Mike Sanchez are on the case. But with the wedding of April's friend fast approaching, April is under pressure to find the killer before another bride dies. But without a motive how can she find out who the next target is?

This was quite a good read. As well as being partners at work Woo & Sanchez are in a relationship. Their different cultures (Chinese & Spanish) mean that their families are not wholly approving & this aspect is nicely covered, adding a bit more substance to their characters.
Glass is a new author to me but April Woo is character I'd like to read more of.

[Jenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I went into this book wanting a quick “who done it” read and that’s exactly what I got. I picked this one off the used bookshelf specifically because of the idea of a strong, Asian woman as the main character. I really enjoyed the many references to different cultures in the book. This book lost a star based on the undertones of stereotyping gay men in the book which was very disappointing and lead me to judge just how much the author did her research on Latino and Asian cultures for the main characters in the story. If you want a quick easy read with a somewhat corny relationship between characters this is your book.

[Pamela Holt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yeah I recommend it BUT

Just saying. Did anybody proofread this book. I read A Lot and have never encountered so many typos in one book. I don’t think I’ve seen this many typos in all the books I’ve read put together. Doesn’t make it a bad book but it gets irritating to find so many

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Leslie Glass. The April Woo series is good and this one is one of the best ones. April's Chinese mindset is an eye opener to Western thinking and is very interesting to read about. The subject of this one - the murdering of brides as they walk down the aisle - is very chilling. The solution is intricate and a good read. Highly recommended.

[Rogue Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Woo's first time traveling by plane is pretty funny. This one's a good one, lots of cultural confusion but true love wins in the end as do smart, determined and hard working cops. Would it that it always was.

[Becky Beighley · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite murder mystery series. Quick reads but really good prose.

[Annalese Petrucci · Rating 3 out of 5]

The ending was poopy but the storyline was decent. The whole time the detectives are trying to find the killer but the ending feels rushed because you don’t get to hear the killers motive

[Rita · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the peek into Chinese culture and learning a little about some of the refugee situations.

[Mad Leon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just an average police mystery. What the motivation of the killer was I couldn't say. It was never clear, I guess he was just crazy. Oh, well.

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good.

[Aneca · Rating 4 out of 5]

had never heard of Leslie Glass before when R. gave me this book as a gift. I was a bit worried when I started it and realized it was part of series (it’s nº 7) but the fact is that it can be read as a standalone.

The main character of the series is April Woo, an American of Chinese descent who is a police detective in NYC. That was one of the things I liked the most about this story, the fact April was Chinese and that her partner and lover is of Mexican descent. There so many different people in NYC with some many different inheritances and most books (at least the ones I read) don’t give you that idea. The fact that in this story their different traditions are very much in evidence just made it all the better.

The mystery in itself is both intriguing and compelling. Can anyone think of anything more original and sad than killing brides on their wedding day? When the first bride, Tovah, dies the first thought is that this is a hate crime as her family was Orthodox Jewish with strict beliefs. However a few days later another bride is gunned down at St Patrick’s Cathedral and she shares nothing in common with the first victim as this is a high society wedding. While investigating everyone that may be connected with both parties April and Mike meet an alcoholic wedding planner, an original florist who employs former African child soldiers and a Chinese American wedding designer.

As the investigation progresses April realizes that her sister-cousin Ching, whose wedding is planned for the near future, shares many of the same helpers that these two brides and may in fact be the killer’s next victim.

The progress of the investigation develops side by side with the romantic relationship of April and Mike but here it is more obvious that this a part of a series has there seems to be a lot of past history among Mike and April.

A very enjoyable read that convinced me that I have to look for the others in the series.

Grade: 4/5

[Vfields Don't touch my happy! · Rating 4 out of 5]

I missed a few of the books that go before this book but I couldn’t wait. This was a really good story with a killer who targeted brides on their wedding days. All this is going on while April Woo’s childhood friend is planning her own wedding and could be the next victim. April and her lover/partner Mick Sanchez are working against the clock to catch the killer and get to the church on time. I hope this writer does not plan on stopping this series any time soon. I can’t get enough of April.

[Gwenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book a great deal. I had a difficult time deciding who was the "bad guy". Thought it was 1 person and then it turned out to be another but the first suspect turned out to be "someone of interest". it was a very fast read since you didn't want to put it down. But I would have liked to have seen Isles involved more. She wasn't featured much at all. I will have to read other books in this series to see if they are as good.

[Vicki · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was the first book I read in what is apparently a series, but I'm not sure if it made a huge difference since I didn't feel like I was missing much in the way of background. I got lost at times trying to figure out which character was narrating the story, so I had to flip back and forth. Although the book was okay, I wouldn't go out of my way to look for other stories about this character or by this writer.

[Kyle Wendy Skultety (gimmethatbook.com) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mildly interesting read, that I picked up for 99 cents. The most interesting parts are when the character Woo is talking about her Chinese heritage, and especially her domineering mother, known as Skinny Dragon. There is a whole series about April Woo, a NYPD detective, but I wasn't impressed enough with the story or the writing to pursue any more.

[Hildegart · Rating 3 out of 5]

The thing that stands out most to me in this series is that the main character is Chinese American. It's nice to read books where the characters are not all caucasian. Around the time I got to this book by Glass, I was getting burned out on her writing. I haven't been in the mood to go back and find more books by her. I'm sure I will one of these days.

[Hildy Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grade: B+

I am really liking these April Woo mysteries. Although they are not really mystery mysteries because you can't really determine who the killer as you are reading because there are no clues...you get there when you get there! But I like it anyway. And I appreciate that there are no gratuitous sex scenes and the the language is manageable as well!

[Carolyn · Rating 1 out of 5]

The mystery is not nearly as complex as the layers upon layers of stereotypes. Asian stereotypes, Jewish stereotypes, Latino stereotypes, gay stereotypes, mother-of-the-bride stereotypes, cop stereotypes. The Welsh guy may be a stereotype too, I just don't know enough about Welsh stereotypes... All of which was distractingly annoying and made it hard for me to get through the book.

[Marti · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting story--three brides get shot before their weddings. Our heroine, April Woo has a sister cousin who is getting married soon, so she is very involved. Her boy friend is Hispanic, which doesn't sit well with her mother. This seems uneven--some parts are exciting, and then the pace slows down a lot.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not only was this a great little thriller-it was a wealth of great cultural information. The author managed to explain various cultures throughout the book without making it preachy or taking you away from the action-it perfectly blended into the story line.

[Sue Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great murder mystery with lots of twists. Hard to put down.

[Sandy Brandes · Rating 3 out of 5]

fun read, brides being murdered on their wedding day...interesting to see the motivation and the killer unfold through the pages.

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this one. Fast and interesting!

[Toesnorth's mom]

better than Tracking Time but not great

[Rose]

This was first book I have read by Leslie Glass. It will not be my last.

[Alice Harbin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good mystery. The murderer is not who you might suspect, as the plot twists and turns. The two detectives working on the case end up getting married.

[Eric Klein]

I like the book

[Rosie · Rating 3 out of 5]

good