Book Review & Author Interview ~~ Angels Sing to Rest by Chrinda Jones

TITLE - Angels Sing To Rest

AUTHOR - Chrinda Jones

GENRE - Crime Thriller

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PAGES - 206

SYNOPSIS
'Angels Sing to Rest' begins where 'Darkness Knows Me' left off: after the investigation into the death of the Deep Ellum Killer, Levi Devereux.

Detective Sergeant Olivia Gates returns from a two month suspension, to find her team has gained a new member, her ex-husband has been released from prison, and a 10 year old street kid has been murdered on her patch of South Dallas.

Her ex she thinks she can deal with, even when he drags their young son into the mix. The murdered boy with the crushed chest, isn't so easily handled and weighs heavily on her as more street kids are killed with an unimaginable sadistic flare and no discernible motive.

If the continuing body count wasn't stressful enough, Olivia's falling out with long time friend and colleague, Doctor Will Green, threatens any hope Olivia had for more than a friendship with the good doctor.

Drugs, gaming, prostitution and sadistic murders lead Gates and her team on a trek through the seamy underbelly of living rough on the streets of downtown Dallas.


MY REVIEW


Angels Sing To Rest is book 2 in the Will Green and Olivia Gates crime series. You could read it as a standalone however the background to the main two characters and their relationship wouldn't make as much sense as if you'd read the first one. I prefer to read a book series from the start but it wouldn't detract from your enjoyment if you hadn't read book one.

I really enjoyed the storyline to this book, albeit a bit gruesome in places. There are numerous characters in the book and if I hadn't picked it up for a couple of days, I had to go back and re-read a few pages to remind myself who was who. Having said that as I got into the book more, I really immersed myself into the story.

I got really frustrated with the relationship between the two main characters, Will and Olivia. Their on-off friendship had cooled and I wanted to shake them and tell them to work together to solve these horrific crimes. That is when I knew I was engrossed in the book.

The author brought the story together really well, and although I found it a little slow to start with, I enjoyed the book more and more as it went on. I look forward to book 3.

Book 1 - Darkness Knows Me 

INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR

Q: When did you realise you wanted to become an author?
A: There was this one particular book, several years back. It was one of many in a long line of “not so good” mysteries and thrillers I read over a period of a year. This particular book, the straw that broke the camel's back mystery, made me say aloud, “I could write something better than this.” I won't reveal the name of this particular book, because that would be bad form and no one wants to be a bad formy kind of person. Let's just suffice it to say that I still have the book around to remind me of what not to do when writing a mystery/thriller.

Q:Who are your writing inspirations?

A: I have always been interested in crime and mystery, something my mother said I inherited from my great-grandmother, who was a hoarder of dime store mysteries and crime novels. If I were made to choose a few of my favorite authors, I would have to say Martha Grimes (an American author who writes the British Inspector Jury series) and Val McDermid (the Scottish author of the Jordan/Hill crime series). Both of these authors write strong stories and well developed characters, something I strive for each time I sit down to write.


Q: Is there a reason why you chose to be a thriller writer and not a writer of say romantic fiction?

A: As I mentioned before, I think the mystery/crime thing might be in my blood. I believe if my great-grandmother hadn't been such a prolific songwriter, she would have turned her talents to writing her beloved mysteries. For me, the science of solving a mystery or crime has always been behind my love for the genres. I don't read romances, but I do enjoy a budding love story, which, by-the-way, my Olivia Gates and Will Green series has in and amongst murders.

Q: Have you secretly based any of you characters on family or friends?
A: No, I haven't based any of my characters on friends or family. I have modeled Olivia Gates, the female protagonist, a bit after myself, mainly my wavy, dark hair and my height.

Q: Where do you prefer to do your writing?
A: I have a home office, which at the moment, is filled with boxes of reference books and the like. The space is more of a place where I “store” the things of my writing, rather than where I actually “do” my writing. I have a wee bit of a neck problem, so sitting in front of a computer can be painful after awhile. So where do I do my actual write? Don't laugh, but I do a great hunk of my writing on my laptop, prone on my bed.

Q: When you were writing book one, were you, in the back of your mind, planning book two?
A: Yes, from the very beginning I planned for Darkness Knows Me, to become a series. Angels Sing to Rest is book two and, Only the Dead Know, is the third of the series, which is a work in progress. Depending on how Only the Dead Know ends, will determine whether or not there will be a fourth instalment to the series.

Q: Have you ever started reading a book yourself and given up on it a few chapters in, or do you persevere to the end?
A: I'm usually one for persevering to at least the halfway mark, but there have been books where getting to that halfway mark was a bit like being flogged with a wet sock for 150 pages. Not one of my more enjoyable experiences.

Q: Tell us one fact about Chrinda Jones that readers don't know.



A: One fact readers wouldn't know about me. Hmm . . . well . . . there was the time, from age four to about age six, when I lived in a one room cabin on a mountain with my parents and sister. When I say one room cabin, I mean one large room, no walls, wood fired cooking stove and an outhouse. Showers were taken at the national park down the mountain from our cabin. Remind me sometime to tell you about the night when an angry female grizzly bear pushed over our outhouse after chasing our dogs back up the mountain to our cabin.

Thank you Chrinda for joining me on my blog. I wish you every success with the book.