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A KEVIN R. TIPPLE BOOK REVIEW:
Some Welcome Home: An Elizabeth Pepperhawk/Avivah Rosen Mystery by Sharon Wildwind
When I put out the call for Louisiana authors and their books, Sharon Wildwind was one of several that responded. The ultimate professional, she was and is a treasure for a reviewer as she did all the right things for a reviewer every step of the way. While I didn’t get to everyone for this first edition of the new Louisiana section as fast as I wanted or expected to, I made a point of making sure that this book got done. The fact that the book was an excellent and engaging read was icing on the cake.
SOME WELCOME HOME: AN ELIZABETH PEPPERHAWK/AVIVAH ROSEN MYSTERY By Sharon Wildwind Five Star Publishing 2005 ISBN # 1-5914-275-0 Hardback
It is July, 1971 and Captain Elizabeth Pepperhawk has been rotated home from her nursing duties in Vietnam and has been assigned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. She is a week early and just in time to find a dead body lying on the bed in the room she has been assigned to her located in the Transient Officer’s Quarters on base. Dealing with this sort of thing at Qui Nhon was one thing but this is a totally different deal especially in light of the ongoing Macdonald murder case. What leaps out at her in those first few moments more than anything is this was clearly a veteran who survived Vietnam only to be killed on American soil and left in her room.
Captain Pepperhawk soon meets and gradually becomes friends with Military Police Captain Avivah Rosen. Stonewalled by Army bureaucracy as well as some blatant sexism, the two begin to investigate the case drawing on their own curiosity as well as experienced backgrounds. It soon becomes clear that the case has far reaching implications with many suspects and Captain Pepperhawk is in grave danger.
This is one of those reviews where my words just don’t do justice to the book. Shifting in point of view from Pepperhawk to Rosen and back again, Author Sharon Wildwind brings her vast experience as a Vietnam era veteran alive for her readers. All of the characters involved both major and minor, are deeply layered real human beings. The novel is one twisting turning read on another as the novel moves forward at a steady pace. Add in her extensive attention to detail and as you read, the real world with all its problems and such disappears and you become immersed in her world. This is the first of a planned five book series and simply an excellent read sure to resonate strongly not only with veterans of America’s many armed conflicts, but all readers as well.
Kevin R. Tipple © 2006 |