Wicked For Hire – Lotta Smith

Wicked For Hire – Lotta Smith CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 1 edition (April 17, 2016) I read the kindle edition 123 pages

I suppose it’s a matter of perception, or rather presentation? No, representation! I just finished reading Cold Waters (see the previous post) and I was critical of the simple no twists storyline, the fact that you had the story pretty much solved by the one third mark, and I was critical of the lack of substance and dimension in the characters.

Well, here is a story… that I expected to be simple and straight forward with fairly two dimensional characters and it was a delight to read. And that was due to my expectation walking into the story.

Wicked For Hire is put forward as a young adult, paranormal cozy mystery and that’s what I got… just as expected. Cold Waters was put forward as a serious, location-style mystery and it didn’t meet expectations…

But yes! I certainly enjoyed this light, quick, quirky story. At just over a hundred pages you can read it in one sitting. The bright, tongue-in-cheek narration adds to the color and the quick pace keeps you turning those pages.

It’s the story of a young woman, Amanda, who has some serious student loans to pay back… being denied the chance to finish med school can do that to a gal, but that’s what happens when some of the patients drop dead from your touch. Oh, and you also get labeled “The Grim Reaper”. Such is the opening to this young adult paranormal cozy…

Amanda is recruited by FBI Special Agent Rick Rowling who just happens to be the star loose cannon of a secret ‘paranormal cases’ division. Seems he needs a new assistant as he goes through them like tissues, and his boss wants someone to rein in the one-man wrecking crew.

So Amanda starts her new job with her new boss trying to solve the mysterious disappearance of a struggling artist, whose sugar-momma is the sister of a woman seeing Rick’s father. Seems the cops have a suspect, the sugar-momma’s other beau. He seems the perfect culprit right up until he mysteriously disappears while under police surveillance.

Can Rick and Amanda find out who, or what is behind these disappearances, before we all disappear?

Riding with him was a hellish experience—he drove as if he were in the Daytona 500, not the middle of Manhattan. “Are you insane?” I managed to say while I tried my best not to puke in the passenger’s seat. “Seriously, you should give your driver’s license back to the state. You can’t drive like a meth-crazed maniac!” “Ha. They shouldn’t grant a driver’s license to someone incapable of dodging my car” was his reply. He had a point, so I made a mental note to file a complaint to the local DMV