The Find
by Gregg
Bell
Description
What can a mother do
when she has no money and a dangerously sick kid?
She can make a
mistake.
In a moment of
desperation, cleaning lady Phoebe Jackson tries to pawn the diamond-bejeweled
Rolex she found in a mobster's locker. Turns out the watch is a fake, but the
mobster isn't - and he's on to her.
Excerpt
The wind
from the thudding helicopter was pushing Phoebe this way and that. The sirens
were getting louder. Phoebe’s shoulder burned. She was starting to lose
consciousness. But with a shaky hand she kept her pistol on Michael.
Michael straightened up, his arms up in the air, fingers extended, the
helicopter whipping his hair. “There,” he yelled, “you’ve got them both now.
It’s what you wanted. It’s over.” He took another step down the stairs but
stopped at the second to last stair and held his arms wide. “You’ve won,
Phoebe.”
She shook her head. His lawyers. His owning the police. His vendettas. His
lies. He’s like a mosquito. The only way you’ll be rid of him is to move
away or kill him.
She wasn’t moving away.
Michael read her eyes. “Don’t, Phoebe,” he yelled. “It would be your worst move
ever. Do you really want your girls to grow up without their mother? You’ll
spend the rest of your life in prison. I can promise you that.”
Phoebe swallowed and lowered the gun. “Maybe so.”
“That’s right.” He nodded aggressively. He stepped down to the last stair.
“That’s the only way to go.”
“Then again maybe not.” She raised the pistol, fired, and the bullet ripped
into his chest. He fell, landing solidly on his butt on the last step, almost
like he’d meant to, his feet dangling like a little boy sitting on a pier. He
coughed blood and tore at his shirt. Then he looked at Phoebe. And he kept
looking at her.
Phoebe didn’t look away, her eyes staying on his until like a slow-falling oak
he tumbled hard onto the tarmac.
Review
By MyTwo Cents
The story started out well, and I expected a lot of suspense. However, it
settled into a fairly predictable, almost romance-type novel, with a main
character that can't seem to decide between a safe, solid, nice guy, and a
hard, abusive, but to her, exciting crook. Other than the main character, we
don't learn much about the other characters, what drives them, their
backgrounds, etc. The main character will do anything for her kids, and I mean
anything. Many of the events in the story provide no context, and leave the
reader with a lot of questions that never get answered.
For me, I would have preferred more mystery and unexpected turns, but I
think this book would appeal more to women.
From the Author
When I was ten, a drunken guy almost drowned me in a swimming pool. It
was in Miami Beach at the Chateau motel. The guy was a pool hand and he was
wrestling (playfully, for the most part)with us kids. Then he said, "I'm
going to show you a good hold" and he got me in a headlock and took me
under. It was a good hold all right. He held me there and held me there and
held me there. I struggled but this was a powerful man. There was nothing to
do. I would either die or I wouldn't.
That experience gave me an appreciation for life's tenuousness. If you
think about it, we're only alive as far as our next breath will take us.
So I write novels and stories about characters like you and me with their
heads underwater. (Figuratively speaking of course.) Characters under so much
duress their brains are about to burst. They're at the end of it all. No way
out of this one. But I also write with a sense of humor. (You have to have a
sense of humor, right?)
I was born in 1956 in Chicago. A lifelong Illinois guy. Married once.
Divorced. No kids. No pets. Passionate about things: people, classical music,
golf. And I always seem to be on the side of the underdog.
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