Customer Reviews

Hit Time: A Mystery

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1 star:		(0)

 

 

Georgia Barnett is a feisty, brash and well-known television reporter for WJIV news in Chicago. Her latest assignment covering a charity event at Lake Michigan turns into the scoop of a lifetime when one of the witnesses finds a dead body floating in the water. It turns out that the man in the water, a murder victim, was Fab Weaver, a former record producer who was famous in the seventies on Chicago's Record Row.

Georgia becomes personally involved in the case when a family friend, guitarist Jimmy Flamingo, becomes the number one suspect in the murder. Jimmy, like so many other people, had a grudge against the record producer because Fab cheated him out of money. Georgia decides to do some investigating, not realizing that she is putting herself in the line of fire.

HIT TIME is a fascinating amateur sleuth tale starring an in your face heroine who endears herself to the reader with her wit, cleverness and bravado. The first person narrative allows the audience to feel close to Georgia and hope she can solve the case without getting herself killed in the process. Ardella Garland has constructed a complex mystery that takes so many twists and turns that the reader will never see who the real villain is.

Harriet Klausner

Being in the right place at the right time, is what happened to TV reported Georgia Barnett. Covering a human interest story, she is the first reporter on the scene when an anonymous body is found floating in the cold lake.

Always out to be first with the scoop of the day, Georgia begins her own unofficial investigation of this case. When one of the prime suspects is a childhood family friend, Georgia goes into high gear to solve this case with help from her cameraman, her twin sister and friends around and about the neighborhood.

In the like of some of my other favorite female detectives, Georgia methodically elimates suspect after suspect. Having a cop for a boyfriend helps as she tends to stay a step ahead of them, but leans heavily on them for backup when she gets herself in dire situations.

This was an enjoyable read with lots of characters with motives to make this a good mystery.

I have read another book by the author as Yolanda Joe and I that was an enjoyable read. HIT TIME was not. At first it had me going but soon I got very bored. What bothered me most was the language. I love to read books by my sisters because I can relate but Garland seemed to go overboard. Words like "sister twin" made me wanna gag. I mean all she had to do was throw in a few "chiles" and "girls" and it would have been a real live ethnic read. Come on Garland.

Over all the story was okay as it had a twist but I could have passed on this one.

Newswoman Georgia Barnett is at the top of her game. She's known and well-liked by all in Chicago, loves her job and has a fine Police Officer boyfriend to boot. Sometimes her job can lead her into situations that are scandolous to say the least.

In this episode, Barnett and company cast about for the necessary evidence to determine who killed Fab Weaver, the infamous head honchous of Hit Time Records. Her search leads her down Chicago's Record Row where the R&B hitmakers used to abound. Georgia's Sista-twin Peaches even gets involved in this dangerous mission to find Weaver's killer.

This story is fast paced. Every chapter ended in such a tease that you had to keep reading. I appreciate the "lessons of the newsroom" throughout the book. However, some of the overused metophors were dispensible. It almost made the story seem like a teen read than an adult mystery.

I've enjoyed some of Yolanda Joe's (Ardella Garland is her nom de plume) past works of fiction. This is the first mystery I've read and thought it was fun. I'm interested to see what other situations Georgia Barnett gets herself involved with in the future.