Edna Buchanan earned the Pulitzer Prize for Journalism in 1986 - General News Reporting - "for her versatile and consistently excellent police beat reporting." She worked as a writer of The Miami Herald police beat for eighteen years, during which she won scores of awards. Then, she turned her attention to writing suspense stories, using Miami as the background for her stories.
Britt Monterro, Cuban-born Miami police beat journalist, is looking into a 22-year-old cold case. Mary Beth Rafferty, an 8-year-old, was murdered after sexual assault. The teen who found her dead body is now running for governor of the state and many believe he murdered the girl years ago and got away with it. At the same time, Monterro is following a serial rapist who suddenly turns his attention around to his pursuer.
Before long, Monterro notices that some old unsolved police cases are suddenly being resolved when the person thought to be the perp (but with insufficient evidence to prosecute them) die under strange circumstances. Unfortunately, Britt starts to see a pattern. The author uses her knowledge of Miami to good effect in this book. I thought this book moved quickly and kept my attention throughout the book.
This novel earned Edna Buchanan a nomination for the Edgar Award for Best Novel in 1995.
Britt Monterro Series
1.Contents Under Pressure (1992)
**2. Miami, It's Murder (1994)
First Britt Montero book I've read - different book for me. Thriller from a reporter's perspective. Want more!
Miami is a city teeming with life and with a restless energy that is undeniable. A city where the skies are always blue and life and death are seldom simple. Miami is also the home of Britt Montero, a feisty, charismatic Cuban-American crime reporter.
In Miami, It's Murder, Britt is investigating a series of bizarre deaths involving sex, electrocution, and freshly poured concrete. With a retired, terminally ill detective as her friend and source, Britt probes the unsolved rape and murder of a little girl, which ultimately may implicate the rich and powerful front-runner in the governor's race. She also follows the trail of a terrifying serial rapist who ambushes career women in the bathrooms of the gleaming downtown skyscrapers that spear the Miami skyline.
This quest takes her from the sterile and antiseptic police crime lab with its forensic experts, into the dark heart of Santeria - a blood-fueled religion linked to spells, symbols, sacrifice, and the occult. Enraged by Britt's stories, the rapist escalates his violence and focuses his obsession on her. Stalked by the shadowy rapist, on the trail of a serial killer, Britt comes ever closer to learning the shocking truth as tensions mount and the stories intersect with edge-of-the-seat suspense and an astonishing conclusion.
This may be the second or third book that I've read by Edna Buchanan and I've enjoyed them all. In my opinion, this book was very well-written, with likable characters; and an action-packed, intricate plot that led in directions that I wasn't expecting. I give this book an A+! Edna Buchanan certainly knows her stuff as an author.
one of her best books to read you will not be able to but it down
