A WELCOME MURDER

• Number: 9781633882638
• Release: April 4, 2017
• Author: Robin Yocum
• Availability: Print-Book
• Genre: Suspense
• Tags: * Susp: Action / Thriller, * Susp: Mystery
• Publisher: Seventh Street Books

After his unspectacular professional baseball career ends with a knee injury in Toledo, Ohio, Johnny Earl gets busted for selling cocaine. After serving seven years in prison, all he wants to do is return to his hometown of Steubenville, retrieve the drug money he stashed before he went to jail, and start a new life where no one has ever heard of Johnny Earl. However, before he can leave town with his money, Johnny is picked up for questioning in the murder of Rayce Daubner, the FBI informant who had set him up on drug charges in the first place. Then his former prison cellmate shows up--a white supremacist who wants the drug money to help fund an Aryan nation in the wilds of Idaho. Five memorable characters, each with a separate agenda, come together in this layered tale of murder, deceit, and political intrigue. (from Night Owl Reviews)

About the Author

Robin Yocum is the author of the 2017 Edgar® Award-nominated A Brilliant Death. He is also the author of the critically acclaimed novels Favorite Sons and The Essay as well as Dead Before Deadline... and Other Tales from the Police Beat and Insured for Murder (with Catherine Candisky). The president of Yocum Communications, a public relations and marketing firm in Westerville, Ohio, Yocum is well known for his work as a crime and investigative reporter with the Columbus Dispatch from 1980-1991. He was the recipient of more than thirty local, state, and national journalism awards in categories ranging from investigative reporting to feature writing.

MY THOUGHTS
The author gives quite a variety of characters, most on the dark side of life.  It takes place in a once prominent and very upbeat Ohio steel town.  Now the beauty is gone and it is slowly rotting to the ground along with the dark people left there. Seems like Johnny Earl can't win.  First he does time for selling coke, seven years and he returns to Steubenville.  His motives aren't exactly to reform.  He gets the money he stashed before his jail time and plans to disappear.  But, and there's always a but,  he is arrested once again for a murder of Rayce Daubner.  Now this wasn't just any man, this was the FBI informant w ho set Johnny up on the first drug charge. As if that wasn't enough, his old cell mate shows up.  Not to say how ya doin'? but he wants the drug money.    The author gives you five characters you get totally involved with.  They each have their own drama but have a connection with lies, politics and murders. The author gives a look at how the police put forth their procedures when a crime has been committed.   The author gives the reader a look at the start and finishes of some decisions, how they affected the character's lives and how bad decisions, too much ambition for the wrong things along with actions that are on the wrong side of the law can affect your life forever.  The author takes a person's life who is at the top of his game and shows how life intervenes sometimes and things can change for the worse.  Somehow they keep getting worse.   Grab a copy of this book . See if Johnny Earl can come out of this dark hole he's in.  Did he kill the FBI informant or will it end up that someone else did it.?  Will Johnny go back to prison or make a new life for himself?   We are given it all so there is something for everyone and when an author can reach a wide audience, the readers will want for more, especially when all of the characters, including the police are a bit screwed up.  Did I say a bit?   Maybe more than that.

I received a copy of this book from the author and Night Owl Reviews and voluntarily decided to review it.

I would give this book 5  STARS.

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