PartnersInCrime Tours Review: The Promissory Payback/Unrevealed by Laurel Dewey + Guest Post

Title(s):Promissory Payback/Unrevealed

Author:Laurel Dewey

Publisher:The Story Plant

Release Date:

Source:publisher|My FTC Disclaimer

Purchase Promissory Payback: Kindle|Nook|Print

Purchase Unrevealed: Kindle|Nook|Print

Rating:5/5 Books

About the Book(s):
PROMISSORY PAYBACK:Laurel Dewey’s Detective Jane Perry is quickly becoming one of the most distinctive, dynamic, and unforgettable characters in suspense fiction today. She’s rock hard, but capable of extraordinary tenderness. She’s a brilliant cop, but she’s capable of making life-altering mistakes. She’s uncannily talented, and she’s heartbreakingly human.

In PROMISSORY PAYBACK Jane is called in to investigate the gruesome murder of a woman who profited greatly from the misfortunes of others. The case leaves Jane with little question about motive…and with a seemingly endless number of suspects.

UNREVEALED:In UNREVEALED, Dewey gives us four indelible portraits of Jane Perry:

ANONYMOUS: One of Jane’s first AA meetings leads her to an encounter with a woman in need of her detection skills…and a secret she never expected to uncover.

YOU CAN’T JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER: Forced by her boss to speak at a high school career day, Jane meets a troubled boy and finds that his story is only the beginning of a much more revealing tale.

YOU’RE ONLY AS SICK AS YOUR SECRETS: An early-morning homicide call introduces Jane to a mystery as layered as it is unsuspected.

THINGS AREN’T ALWAYS WHAT THEY SEEM: Jane finds herself sharing a 2:00 am conversation at a downtown bar with an old acquaintance. Will the bloody night that proceeded this moment complicate Jane’s intentions?

About the Author:
Laurel Dewey was born and raised in Los Angeles. She is the author of two nonfiction books on plant medicine, a Silver Spur-nominated Western novella, hundreds of articles, the Jane Perry novels, PROTECTOR, REDEMPTION, and REVELATIONS, and the Jane Perry novelette, AN UNFINISHED DEATH. She lives in Western Colorado with her husband, where she is currently working on a standalone novel.

GUEST POST:

Not Your Typical Crime Thriller
By Laurel Dewey

During interviews, I often get asked what makes the Jane Perry series of crime thrillers different from other crime thrillers out there. That’s simple. Along with a good dose of mystery, murder and intense story themes, a mystical thread weaves through the books. Some readers and reviewers have called it “esoteric” and “metaphysical.” And this whole part emerged quite naturally during the writing of the first Jane Perry novel, Protector.

Jane Perry is a hardcore, emotionally damaged detective who has experienced a great deal of trauma in her early life. When we first meet her, she’s a shell of her former self and verging on a nervous breakdown due to horrific circumstances involving a recent murder case. She’s also an unapologetic alcoholic. Blackouts are becoming the norm for her and within those, she realizes that she is saying and writing things down that don’t make sense but seem to be coming true in strange ways during her regular daily life. Much of this precognitive haze seems to be leading her toward her next case. But it’s what she’s not aware of until the last few pages of the book that brings the whole thing into a strange, supernatural clarity.

I didn’t include this aspect into the novels as a “hook” or for commercial reasons. Rather, it presented itself as a natural progression of Jane Perry’s life. Jane has always been a highly intuitive woman, incorporating what some refer to as “The Blue Sense”—a twist on “the sixth sense” for the men and women who wear “blue.” She’s able to walk into a crime scene and literally feel into the walls, furniture and objects in the room, sensing not just what is shown to her but gain an attachment to the fear, terror, chaos and confusion that occurred during the crime. For Jane Perry, the walls literally speak to her. But since she is also dealing with a severe drinking problem, she struggles in the first novel to determine what is generated from her intuition and what is leftover from the haze of her hangover.

I’ve had people ask me if I wanted to make Jane “psychic” and the answer is a resounding “no.” I think that term tends to minimize and even marginalize the richness of the strange interlocking coincidences that happen to Jane as the series progresses. Admittedly, a lot of very odd, dovetailing events happen in the books that defy rational explanations. Jane is tuned in but the stories also touch on the mystical and unexplained world we all live in. I really wanted to stress the interconnectedness that we share and feed into without even realizing it sometimes. There’s a quote from Herman Melville I use in the front pages of Protector that summed up that idea beautifully: “We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.”

My hope is that the Jane Perry series doesn’t just entertain but hopefully gives readers insight into their own lives and opens their minds to the possibility that everything is not what it appears and that there is so much more going on around us in the ether that mysteriously and provocatively compels us without us even knowing it. And that’s where the magic begins.

My Review:
So, I love Laurel Dewey’s work. I’ve her some of her past work and WOW! She has got some MAJORLY mad writing skills. She instantly captures me each and every time and having the opportunity to read these two stories was absolutely awesome. So with two sets of stories bringing me back to Jane Perry’s life, I was super happy.

In Promissory Payback, Laurel Dewey brings us a novelette that is filled with fantastic twists and turns. The death of a woman who is nothing but a con artist,blossoming on the unfortunate events of the people she uses and cons. But, she took it too far, and now someone has returned the favor to her. She’s dead and Jane Perry’s on the case.

With fast, intense thrills, Jane Perry sweeps in and brings the reader with her to the heart of the investigation. You’re on the ride of your life with Jane Perry once again in Promissory Payback.

Unrevealed is a short story collection all about the fabulous Jane Perry. Each story brings us something different in Jane’s life, from AA meetings with a twist, to revealing her life as a cop at a school lecture, to family secrets and bars, each story is told differently. It was interesting to see Jane Perry in short stories. I loved her in the novels and the novelette that Laurel Dewey thrust in, but with short stories, I found I wanted more twists and turns, more of Jane’s fantastic character and investigations. But, over all, I loved this. It’s perfect for that wait of another Jane Perry novel.

I can’t wait to see what Laurely Dewey has in store next. These are fantastic 5 Book worthy stories and if you haven’t check out Ms. Dewey’s work, then I suggest you do so. You will be in for the ride of your life with the intense twists, turns, ins, outs and endings that surprise you. There are still two Jane Perry stories I MUST read: The Protector, a novel, and An Unfinished Death, a novelette. They are calling me! GREAT job, once again, Ms. Dewey!

Next Stop:November 4th: Review~Senora G @ Reading, Reading And Life