2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Buried in Baltimore, July 8, 2001
This review is from: Buried in Baltimore [3 1/2 Diskette, HTML] (Diskette)
Title Buried in Baltimore Author Louise Titchener Author's URL www.mysteriousbaltimore.com Publisher Hard Shell Word Factory Publisher's URL www.hardshell.com Genre Mystery ISBN 0-7599-0039-6 Release April 2001 Reviewer Evelyn Gale, Ivy Quill Reviews
If Toni Credella had helped Alice when she asked, would Alice still be alive? Driven by guilt, Toni can't wait for the Baltimore Police Department to find her neighbor's murderer. The death of a street woman isn't as high on their priority list as that of the thirty-year-old corpse found two days earlier in the same area. Toni's priorities are different: Alice was her friend and lacking a motive for her death, Toni searches for a link between the two murders.
Keep your eye on Louise Titchener's Toni Credella, Baltimore's most unlikely PI: She is smart - street smart, that is. No slick, jet-setter, Toni's not a tougher-than-Hammer super woman, she doesn't bumble comically; she has no cat and never mentions knitting. Toni is very loveable but she's on the outs with a lot of people: she's estranged from her family and almost all of Baltimore's finest because she shot her drunken policeman husband when he nearly beat her to death. She's profoundly dyslexic, a high school dropout and unable to read or drive a car. For transportation she has just her own strong legs and a bicycle. Only sporadically hired as an interior decorator, she lives just slightly better than her neighbors, Baltimore's street people: she has a home - a derelict she bought from the city and is redecorating with other people's cast-offs.
Toni Credella has some pretty strange friends: There's Randall, her gay attorney, and O'Dell, one Baltimore Policeman who believes Toni's husband deserved what she gave him. There's her new boss, Maloney, a former cop turned PI who is still hung up on his ex-wife. And there are her friendly neighbors Alice, Jimmy and Harmony of Baltimore's street community. Add to this mix a sister Sandy who disapproves of Toni, her home, her friends, her past, her present and her future, but who cries on Toni's shoulder whenever she has a problem with her husband Al, another Baltimore policeman who detests Toni.
The way Ms. Titchener writes, the reader forgets he's not right beside Toni on the streets of Baltimore, in the soup line or at the docks in this colorfully-peopled story told in rich, full-bodied, yet concise detail. She weaves the complex personalities of the characters into the fabric of the story so adroitly that the reader would recognize them from across the street and rush over to drop a dollar in a cap or slink away hoping to remain unnoticed.
As the story unfolds, Toni tries to put together a life for herself after being acquitted of killing her husband. She has to balance her desire for love with her desire to make a living, learn self confidence as well as self defense and find absolution for her guilt. In the process she escapes attempts on her life and ultimately proves her mettle as a PI - Toni is an over comer.
This incredibly well crafted story keeps the reader riveted with its intrigue and expressive writing. It's impossible to read Buried in Baltimore without clamoring for the next Toni Credella adventure. I give Buried in Baltimore by Louise Titchener a full five stars; it's an outstanding PI mystery.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Book, June 7, 2001
This review is from: Buried in Baltimore [3 1/2 Diskette, HTML] (Diskette)
BURIED IN BALTIMORE by Louise Titchener Hard Shell Word Factory - April 2001 ISBN: 0759900396 - Ebook ISBN: 0759900426 - Paperback This is one of those books that sucks you into the action from page one. Antoinette Credella comes from a good Italian family. Unfortunately she is not on good standings with them because she killed her abusive husband who also just happened to be a Baltimore policeman, Determined to make it on her own against all odds, including severe dyslexia, Toni decides she wants to be a private investigator. She asks a trusted friend who tells her she must do an apprenticeship and finds her a private eye willing to take her on. When one of Toni's friends, a homeless person named Alice is found murdered Toni is curious. Especially after it comes to light that she was found on the site that a young girl's skeleton had been recovered. It appears the skeleton has been there for 20 years. Is there a connection between the two? When Toni seems to be making progress, it appears that someone will go to any length to stop her. I had a feeling for the city of Baltimore from the very start, from the row house that Toni was trying to restore and renovate to the large businesses downtown to the water slapping against the docks on the harbor shores. In Toni Credella I found a character for which I could really feel. She is faced with so many obstacles but still cares about the people around her. Louise Titchener has written a truly suspenseful book.
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