To Catch a Bad Guy, by Marie Astor

I enjoyed reading TO CATCH A BAD GUY, by Marie Astor very much. This was the perfect book for me to read while sitting on the porch with an ice tea, enjoying the last days of summer. It is an easy to read linear story centered around Janet Maple, a 29-year-old attorney. She lost her job at the District Attorney’s Office due to downsizing; or, more accurately, betrayal by her then boyfriend, Alex Kingsley, who took credit for her work in order to advance his own career, then fired her in the “downsizing” process.   Janet’s childhood friend and neighbor, Lisa Foley, gets her a job with Bostoff Securities as General Council, an in-house corporate attorney’s position. Unfortunately, Janet notices nonethical trading methods within Bostoff Securities that worry her. The best part is the revealing of how Lisa, as a friend, has somehow always caused Janet to end up on the bottom rung of the ladder, uncomfortable situations, in their relationship. Lisa is one of those self-absorbed, self-serving friends that ends up hurting instead of helping. I like that Janet always takes the high ground in their friendship. Regardless the discomfort brought on her by “the queen bee” high school friend, Janet remains a loyal friend looking out for the best interest of Lisa. Yeah! The type of protagonist that I can relate to, and be apathetic with.

Janet is so often victim to Lisa’s match making attempts. Lisa keeps trying to set Janet up with good looking rich men. In this story, these potential good husband-provider types all have questionable morals. Enters Dean Snider, aka Dennis Walker, an undercover agent working to catch the Wall Street criminals. Janet has an immediate attraction to Dean Snider when she meets him on her first day at work at Bostoff Securities, sitting at her desk in her office “fixing her computer” (bugging her computer). She throws up her defenses once she finds out he deceived her and is actually an impersonator; a spy. The romantic tension is delightful to the end where we are left hanging. Thus, I now have to read Book Two of the Janet Maple Series, because I am the cat that will die of curiosity until I know if they finally get together, or just become good friends and partners in crime, i.e., catching the bad guys. Gotta know!

The Enemy We Know, by Donna White Glaser

BUY ON AMAZON

Book One in the Letty Whittaker 12 Step Mystery Series

The title adds to the story because the enemy is so obvious, we know the enemy until the enemy we think we know gets killed, so the enemy we know was the enemy isn’t, then we don’t know who the enemy is out of the growing list of potential enemies we think we know could be the enemy. Just saying the title seemed to add to my knowing in the beginning. After all the surprising twists and turns and the surprise ending the title held a deeper meaning for me (no spoilers), thus added even more to the story. The whole thing is so nicely knit together. 

The suspense and mystery are glued together with humor and the personable main character’s ability to wiggle through, and on down the road that we call life. I love the main character, Letty Whittaker, and Donna White Glaser’s well developed humorous Mystery Series. I’m a happy reader with this one. On to Book Two.