Mysterious Reviews, mysteries reviewed by the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books, is publishing a new review of A Bad Day for Sorry by Sophie Littlefield. For our blog readers, we are printing it first here in advance of its publication on our website.
A Bad Day for Sorry by Sophie Littlefield
A Stella Hardesty Mystery
St. Martin's Minotaur (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 0-312-55920-8 (0312559208)
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-55920-5 (9780312559205)
Publication Date: August 2009
List Price: $24.99
Review: Sophie Littlefield introduces Stella Hardesty, a widow by her own hand and whose reputation thereafter puts fear into those men who dare to abuse their wives or girlfriends, in A Bad Day for Sorry.
Stella fancies herself a parole officer of a sort. But she "wasn't bound by all the bureaucratic red tape that real parole officers had to wade through. She didn't have to fill out paperwork. She didn't report to a boss. She didn't have to appear in court. And she could make the parolees tell her any damn thing she wanted to know. She couldn't, however, always make them tell the truth." Her latest subject is a repeat offender, Roy Dean Shaw, who, as Stella puts it, made his new woman cry. She finds him and has a "friendly" chat, but waiting for her at home is Chrissy Shaw, Roy Dean's ex-wife. Chrissy is frantic: her little boy Tucker is missing and she thinks Roy Dean has taken him. Stella isn't so sure, since she'd recently seen him, but she can't let a missing boy stay missing very long. She soon discovers, however, that not only is Tucker gone but Roy Dean has disappeared as well, and the case is far more complicated ... and dangerous ... than anything's she's been involved with before.
A Bad Day for Sorry is filled with so many unsympathetic characters that they mask a relatively good, solidly plotted story. Carrie Underwood with a Louisville Slugger may be able to get away with murder (as it were), but Stella Hardesty with a semi-automatic, not so much. Stella's passive/aggressive attitude (a mild-mannered sewing shop owner by day, a super woman righter of wrongs by night) just doesn't resonate here, and somewhat unfortunately, this larger than life character isn't just a participant in every scene, she dominates them. Some readers will undoubtedly find Stella a hoot, and the book pure entertainment; but to others, Stella will come across as a mean-spirited, abusive woman herself, one whose approach to an investigation and solving a crime somehow doesn't seem all that appealing.
Special thanks to St. Martin's Minotaur for providing a copy of A Bad Day for Sorry for this review.
Review Copyright © 2009 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
If you are interested in purchasing A Bad Day for Sorry from Amazon.com, please click the button to the right. A Bad Day for Sorry (Kindle edition) is also available. Learn more about the Kindle, Amazon's Wireless Reading Device.
Synopsis (from the publisher): Stella Hardesty dispatched her abusive husband with a wrench shortly before her fiftieth birthday. A few years later, she’s so busy delivering home-style justice on her days off, helping other women deal with their own abusive husbands and boyfriends, that she barely has time to run her sewing shop in her rural Missouri hometown. Some men need more convincing than others, but it’s usually nothing a little light bondage or old-fashioned whuppin' can’t fix. Since Stella works outside of the law, she’s free to do whatever it takes to get the job done---as long as she keeps her distance from the handsome devil of a local sheriff, Goat Jones.
When young mother Chrissy Shaw asks Stella for help with her no-good husband, Roy Dean, it looks like an easy case. Until Roy Dean disappears with Chrissy’s two-year-old son, Tucker. Stella quickly learns that Roy Dean was involved with some very scary men, as she tries to sort out who’s hiding information and who’s merely trying to kill her. It’s going to take a hell of a fight to get the little boy back home to his mama, but if anyone can do it, it’s Stella Hardesty.
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