Dead Birds Don't Sing

Dead Birds Don't Sing, Brenda M. Boldin, ebooksonthe.net, 2000

The town of Bay City is divided into three sections. In the east, Bayside, on the water, is the land of six figure incomes. To the west, Lafayette is the sort of place where people are lucky to have any income at all. Everyone else lives in the aptly named Centercity. The three parts of town have little, or no, interaction with each other.

Alex Masters is a former resident of Lafayette, and former prostitute, trying to go "straight" in Bayside. She was a former consort of King Marshall, the former "head" of Lafayette, now in state prison. The current ruler of Lafayette, a man named Beau, wanted to keep Alex for himself, but, with Marshall's help, she refused. Beau hasn't forgotten.

One day, while standing in line at the local bank, Alex gets caught in a bank robbery by Beau and a couple of his goons. She is recognized and taken hostage. Beau plans to turn her back into a junkie, then kill her with a drug overdose, but she is rescued in the nick of time by the same handsome blond
stranger that she, literally, ran into at the bank, police detective Cole Armstrong.

The police are convinced that Alex knows more than she is willing to admit. There was a fourth person involved in the robbery, who has disappeared with the loot. Alex thinks it is Detective Armstrong. Beau, the sort of person who shoots first and asks questions later, is also looking for that fourth person, and looking for Alex, to prevent her from talking to the police, permanently.

Along the way, a couple of friends of Alex from the old days end up dead, and Alex is the main suspect. She must rely on her Lafayette instincts to stay away from the murderer and away from Beau (if they aren't one and the same person) and keep from having to tell the police what she knows, convinced that they are in on the whole thing.

This is quite good and quite entertaining. The author does a fine job from start to finish with good characters and an interesting mystery. This is a strong, you-won't-go-wrong sort of story.<p>