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Cat Marsala Mystery #4
Hard Women: A Cat Marsala Mystery
While investigating prostitution in the Windy City, Chicago journalist Cat Marsala befriends a young escort named Sandra, whose murder she must soon unravel
- GenresMystery
249 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 1993
37 people want to read
About the author
Barbara D'Amato
44 books27 followersAka Malacai Black
Barbara D'Amato has had a checkered career, working in the distant past as an assistant surgical orderly, carpenter for stage magic illusions, assistant tiger handler, stage manager, researcher for attorneys in criminal cases, and recently sometimes teaching mystery writing to Chicago police officers.
"Writing is the greatest job of all," D'Amato says. "I get to hang around with cops, go ask people questions about their jobs that I would be too chicken to ask without a reason, and walk around Chicago looking for good murder locales. Best of all, I get to read mystery and suspense novels and call it keeping up with the field."
She was the 1999-2000 president of Mystery Writers of America. D'Amato is also a past president of Sisters in Crime International.
D'Amato is a playwright, novelist, and crime researcher. Her research on the Dr. John Branion murder case formed the basis for a segment on "Unsolved Mysteries," and she appeared on the program. Her musical comedies, The Magic Man and children's musical The Magic of Young Houdini, written with husband Anthony D'Amato, played in Chicago and London. Their Prohibition-era musical comedy RSVP Broadway, which played in Chicago in 1980, was named an "event of particular interest" by Chicago magazine. A native of Michigan, she has been a resident of Chicago for many years.
Barbara D'Amato has had a checkered career, working in the distant past as an assistant surgical orderly, carpenter for stage magic illusions, assistant tiger handler, stage manager, researcher for attorneys in criminal cases, and recently sometimes teaching mystery writing to Chicago police officers.
"Writing is the greatest job of all," D'Amato says. "I get to hang around with cops, go ask people questions about their jobs that I would be too chicken to ask without a reason, and walk around Chicago looking for good murder locales. Best of all, I get to read mystery and suspense novels and call it keeping up with the field."
She was the 1999-2000 president of Mystery Writers of America. D'Amato is also a past president of Sisters in Crime International.
D'Amato is a playwright, novelist, and crime researcher. Her research on the Dr. John Branion murder case formed the basis for a segment on "Unsolved Mysteries," and she appeared on the program. Her musical comedies, The Magic Man and children's musical The Magic of Young Houdini, written with husband Anthony D'Amato, played in Chicago and London. Their Prohibition-era musical comedy RSVP Broadway, which played in Chicago in 1980, was named an "event of particular interest" by Chicago magazine. A native of Michigan, she has been a resident of Chicago for many years.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 18, 2024
Very good story.
March 13, 2015
Hard Women (A Cat Marsala Mystery, Book 4)
by Barbara D'Amato
I the things I've mentioned in previous reviews of novels in this series still holds true. D'Amato is a master at combining the hard facts of her subject matter with the easy flow of her writing style. In this episode, Cat is doing an investigative piece for local TV -- a 8-10 minute spot on prostitution in Chicago. Cat is tireless in her research of the differing levels of the sex trade, from the lowly street walkers to the B-Girls to the high class/high cost call girls/escorts. She's paired with a long time vice cop and his new partner, a young officer just recently transferred to the unit. She also has a camera man from the TV station to help film and edit the piece. Along the way, she befriends a young call girl who she allows to move in with her and L.J. when the young woman runs into some trouble. When the same young woman ends up dead in the alley next to Cat's building, the assignment morphs into a search for her killer.
D'Amato does a bang up job of pacing, walking the reader along the streets of Chicago, from uptown to the Loop to Downtown, lacing the action with information regarding the sex trade in its various forms. The author has a nice tongue-in-cheek humor in her style, and the books in the series are laced with an almost "aside" feeling, as though Cat were speaking directly to the reader. An example here would be on 184 (marketplace paperback): "Could anything so devious occur in Chicago politics? Does it snow in Canada? Does the CTA ever run late?"
Again, there are only a handful of active characters who populate this book, and you learn to like them, hate them, pity them, and/or be disgusted by them right along with Cat. Each character has a part to play and each one plays that part to the utmost. This novel also examines more closely Cat's attempt to better understand herself and her feelings for the two men in her life, as well as exploring how her life view undergoes a change as a result of her work and experiences.
The proofing and editing were very good, although I did find one error. On page 47 (marketplace paperback)is this: "Oh, we're not tally naive, are we?" If that wasn't supposed to be "totally naive," I'd be very surprised.
As with the earlier books in the series, this was a quick and enjoyable read.
by Barbara D'Amato
I the things I've mentioned in previous reviews of novels in this series still holds true. D'Amato is a master at combining the hard facts of her subject matter with the easy flow of her writing style. In this episode, Cat is doing an investigative piece for local TV -- a 8-10 minute spot on prostitution in Chicago. Cat is tireless in her research of the differing levels of the sex trade, from the lowly street walkers to the B-Girls to the high class/high cost call girls/escorts. She's paired with a long time vice cop and his new partner, a young officer just recently transferred to the unit. She also has a camera man from the TV station to help film and edit the piece. Along the way, she befriends a young call girl who she allows to move in with her and L.J. when the young woman runs into some trouble. When the same young woman ends up dead in the alley next to Cat's building, the assignment morphs into a search for her killer.
D'Amato does a bang up job of pacing, walking the reader along the streets of Chicago, from uptown to the Loop to Downtown, lacing the action with information regarding the sex trade in its various forms. The author has a nice tongue-in-cheek humor in her style, and the books in the series are laced with an almost "aside" feeling, as though Cat were speaking directly to the reader. An example here would be on 184 (marketplace paperback): "Could anything so devious occur in Chicago politics? Does it snow in Canada? Does the CTA ever run late?"
Again, there are only a handful of active characters who populate this book, and you learn to like them, hate them, pity them, and/or be disgusted by them right along with Cat. Each character has a part to play and each one plays that part to the utmost. This novel also examines more closely Cat's attempt to better understand herself and her feelings for the two men in her life, as well as exploring how her life view undergoes a change as a result of her work and experiences.
The proofing and editing were very good, although I did find one error. On page 47 (marketplace paperback)is this: "Oh, we're not tally naive, are we?" If that wasn't supposed to be "totally naive," I'd be very surprised.
As with the earlier books in the series, this was a quick and enjoyable read.
September 10, 2008
HARD WOMEN - VG
D'Amato, Barbara - 4th in Cat Marsala series
Does anybody care about a dead hooker? That's the question Chicago journalist Cat Marsala is wrestling with. The hooker, Sandra love, is sleeping on Cat's couch in exchange for the Inside scoop on life as a prostitute. Now she's dead in a gutter outside Cat's building and nobody seems to be in a hurry to solve the crime.
Except Cat. Digging into the netherworld of prostitution, from the streetwalkers who trade sex for food, to the enormously high-priced independents, Cat's search for a killer takes her deep into the motives and motivations of hard women--and men--on both sides of a dirty game.
This wasn't quite as good as some of her earlier books, but it was still very good.
D'Amato, Barbara - 4th in Cat Marsala series
Does anybody care about a dead hooker? That's the question Chicago journalist Cat Marsala is wrestling with. The hooker, Sandra love, is sleeping on Cat's couch in exchange for the Inside scoop on life as a prostitute. Now she's dead in a gutter outside Cat's building and nobody seems to be in a hurry to solve the crime.
Except Cat. Digging into the netherworld of prostitution, from the streetwalkers who trade sex for food, to the enormously high-priced independents, Cat's search for a killer takes her deep into the motives and motivations of hard women--and men--on both sides of a dirty game.
This wasn't quite as good as some of her earlier books, but it was still very good.
January 30, 2014
This was light, easy, mystery - main character is a freelance reporter named Cat Marsala. She has a grey parrot named Long John Silver referred to as LJS most of the time.
January 2, 2015
Cat Marsala doing investigative TV bit on prostitutes. Meets some, one is murdered.
Good story.
Good story.
September 8, 2015
Not as good as the others in the series -- until the end where it picked up. Will give it one more try and then see if it's time to give up. Happens sometimes...
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews