Customer Reviews

Five Star First Edition Mystery - Deadly Blessings

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
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In Chicago Alexandrine "Alex" St. James has a story that can make her TV journalist career revolving around a twenty-two year old Polish immigrant Milla Voight impregnated by Father Carlos de los Santos. However, someone kills Milla while Carlos flees to his native Brazil.

To Alex's chagrin her boss at Midwest Focus Television newsmagazine Philip "Bass" Bassett takes her off the follow-up story replacing her with newcomer Fenton Foss, nephew of a management big cheese. She is assigned to investigate beauty salons that have failed its clients with poor perms. Since Milla worked Hair to Die For salon, Alex starts there figuring she can meet the assignment, but also investigate the homicide.

DEADLY BLESSINGS is a solid journalist investigative tale starring a delightful heroine who needs future appearances. Alex makes the tale work as she plays with the cards that her boss and her boyfriend provide to her in a game that the two men rig. The twists are shrewdly used to provide insight into the heroine as much as into the case except for an eye opening final spin in which professional ethics is discarded for career enhancement. Julie Hyzy provides a tense tale that showcases a darker side to Chicago and the church that comes across badly using the flock for personal gain.

Harriet Klausner

Ms. Hyzy kept me on the edge of my seat until the very end. Unlike other mystery novels where the reader has suspicions as to the outcome, I didn't have a clue. "Deadly Blessings" is well written, very clever, fast paced, and an enjoyable read for anyone who is looking for a great mystery.

I found the book, Deadly Blessings, to be timely and a good read. The dialogue is crisp; the subject matter thought provoking; and the writing excellent.
A winner!

With the debut of her first novel, Artistic License, readers knew Julie A. Hyzy was something special. Now, with her second, Deadly Blessings, she's on her way to becoming a new superstar. The first in a series featuring Chicago-based news researcher, Alex St. James, Hyzy has created a modern-girl heroine whom we can't help but adore. She's smart and sassy, she has a Napoleonic boss and an unfulfilled love life; she's got family burdens, pesky relatives, and an interesting supporting cast to round things out. In the spirit of Sue Grafton's Kinsey Milhone, Alex is a joy as she narrates the first person account of tracing down a story of the exploitation of Eastern European women by powerful forces. It's a theme ripped from today's headlines, and told with an expert and unrelenting pace as well as some very fabulous writing. All of the characters are so real that they practically leap off the page with crisp dialogue, humanistic foibles, and real-life problems. There isn't a cardboard one in the bunch. This is mystery-suspense at its finest. Hyzy is a polished stylist who knows how to write one hell of a story. It'll keep you turning the pages long into the night. Don't dare miss it.

I just discovered this series and love, love, love it. I was hooked on the first page of Deadly Blessings and couldn't put it down til finished!! Give it a try, I think you will like it!

This is the first Alex St. James mystery but it is the 2nd one I have read. It is a good quick read. It's a mystery with a reporter as the main star. I rate it it as a good story, easy to read and enjoyable.

Not your usual run-of-the-mill mystery. The author has created a dedicated authentic protagonist who really gets into a story and follows the leads whereever they take her. An impressive debut.

The core plot concerns a young Polish immigrant girl who is apparently pregnant by a local priest. But because the girl is a recent immigrant, Alex St. James suspects there's more to the story. Murder, threat and rising tension follow as Alex fights off nepotism and reassignment at the station and stonewalling from the authorities, both secular and religious.

Alex St. James is a competitive researcher at a Chicago television station. It's all here, the internal struggles and the constant fight for ratings balanced against the need to get the stories on the air accurately and in a timely manner. And we have that gorilla of a character in the Chicago Arch-Diocese with all its connections and all its power. Who blinks first? It isn't our heroine, but she does find herself in some dicey situations. That's one of the problems with this kind of mystery--we know the protagonist is going to make it through, bent and bruised though she may be.

It's a nod to the author that the story is a real page turner, particularly with some additional sub-plots that will keep readers guessing. It takes a while to get going, but once the characters and the plots are in place, the pace and the strength of the writing pick up greatly. The climax is excellent and worth waiting for and Hyzy's manipulation of Chicgo as the setting is excellent.

A wicked gale is blowing through the Windy City. In Deadly Blessings, an Alex St. James mystery, the reader learns that the road to hell really is paved with good intentions.

Alex St. James, a Chicago TV news magazine person, is drawn into a story of Polish immigrants who are settling into new lives as American citizens and Chicago residents. They are sponsored by the Catholic Church and, it would seem, live lives of godly grace. However, because the immigrants become entangled in an underground culture, life is much different than they expect it to be.

Alex St. James is then drawn into the immigrant's lives as a result of covering an expose for TV and discovers that the Church may not be as 'holy' as one would expect. And when priests and prostitutes share the same page, one begins to question if there could be a connection.

Armchair Interviews says: The real characters, a full atmosphere, Catholic Church controversy and the true vulnerability of immigrants in modern life, make this story a real page-turner.

from Ms. Hyzy, whom I've just discovered thru "State of the Onion". Although I have to say this wasn't a surprise ending for me, especially given the book's title, I greatly appreciated the writing, the development of the plot, the heroine's personality, and her "life".

I am looking forward to the second in the Alex St. James series, Deadly Interest, while awaiting the arrival of Ms. Hyzy's "Artistic License", which hopefully arrives soon....and the second in her White House Chef series starring Olivia Paras.