by Dorothy Howell
Publisher: Dorothy Howell
Release Date: 21 February 2013
ISBN: 9780985693015
ASIN: B00BKSKKEC
Format: Kindle Book
Pages: 202
Genre: Mystery
Time to read: 4.5 hours
Source: Amazon (Free at the time)
aStore Link (Real Book): Fatal Debt
aStore Link (Kindle Book): Fatal Debt
Summary
(from Goodreads)
Dana Mackenzie finds herself working for a faceless financial institution — it's either this or piercing ears at the mall — and while she's grateful for a job, she has no intentions of following the corporate offices' heartless orders.
When she's instructed to repossess a 42-inch Sony television from an elderly couple, Dana intends to put her own twist on the assignment. But upon arriving at their run down house in a gang infested neighborhood, she's horrified to find sweet old Mr. Sullivan murdered.
The homicide detective investigating the case is Nick Travis, Dana's high school crush. Sparks ignite, but a dark secret threatens to keep them apart — unless Nick comes clean about the past.
Dana agrees to help Mr. Sullivan's grieving family locate his grandson, a guy with a surprising new lifestyle who's been missing since the day of the murder. Her good intentions put her in the thick of the murder investigation and on a collision course with the killer.
My Reaction
I must have hit a spell of free cozy mysteries on Amazon: this is the third one I've read in a row. I still have no idea what the actual definition of a cozy mystery is, but this seems like it fits whatever schema I have in my head for it. I tend to save these ebooks for when I'm on the treadmill in the wee morning hours before work, and this particular one made me want to stay on the machine longer just to finish the chapter.
Fatal Debt features an amateur sleuth with a profession I do not think I ever would have conceived of reading about with interest, let alone considered it to work well within a mystery novella; but, here we are. Dana MacKenzie works for a payday loan service office, or something to the effect of where the business gives personal loans to people who really cannot afford to pay for what they are buying. Dave Ramsey considers this particular business to be the lowest of the bottom feeders in the financial industry.
My financial digression aside, Howell really pulled me into this book with the nontraditional career perspective Dana has. It also opened my eyes to the fact that, although I deride the whole concept of the business of preying on the financially inept, that the people that work for them are just that: people--with feelings, sympathy, and good intentions (for the most part). Dana bends over backwards for a lot of her clients who are just in a monetary rut and need a little more time to pay back their loans; meanwhile, she exacts a bit of personal justice on those who simply do not pay. These latter moments really gave me that chill of enjoyment from seeing justice being served.
I probably would have found the thought of a loan officer and her office minutia to be boring, but Howell balanced her descriptions of the mundane interactions with office coworkers and clientele with the fun part of the job in a way a lot of office workers (myself included) can identify with. After finding herself mixed in the murder investigation, Dana uses her work's connections to speed up the progress by using her ability to do background checks, financial reports, and asset collection to narrow down the suspects and try to find out motive.
Of course, a few of the downsides of this particular book (as there are with many ebooks) greatly deal with the need for a copyeditor. I'm not a grammar prude (okay, maybe I am), but I do get taken out of the story when I come across words that SpellCheck missed that are technically words but do not fit in the progression of the sentence. I think it just needed another pair of eyes on it to pick out some easy-to-miss flaws.
Story-wise, Dana is an interesting character but not one I would typically consider identifying with. She is a bit brash and, particularly from her interactions with her coworkers, seems to be the office mate I would try to avoid; but then, her coworkers also gave me that impression. The stereotype of mostly female inter-office relationships being a haven of jealousy and backbiting applies here.
Also, her interactions with detective Nick, the guy she hates mentally but lusts for physically, seemed to be forcing itself toward a relationship because that's the way these books are supposed to end. I couldn't tell how old Dana was supposed to be (probably late 20's, early 30's?) but when it came to Nick she was evidently 14. That might be the way women actually be mentally around guys they like, but in reading I found it immature and probably skimmed those parts to get to the real meat of this book, which was the investigation and whether Dana was going to get herself killed.
Fatal Debt was the first in the series featuring Dana MacKenzie; book two is called Fatal Luck. I think I have to read the next one simply to answer the question about Nick's high school incident that was ever-present and continuously popping up throughout the story.
Reading Challenges: 2015 Authors A to Z Reading Challenge, 2015 eBook Reading Challenge
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