Tuesday 27 December 2016

Book ~ "Beyond the Carousel" (2017) Bette Lee Crosby

From Goodreads ~ Laura Wilkes has everything a woman could want when she snaps the carousel picture. Her daughter, a happy little five-year-old, is holding the brass ring and smiling at a daddy who adores her. Each time the carousel circles around Laura snaps another picture, seven in all. This is a day of unforgettable happiness; one of the few Laura has left.

In the months following the stock market crash, Franklin Wilkes is killed; gunned down in senseless act of vengeance. The police know who did it but the man has disappeared. It’s the height of the depression and there are hoards of nameless, faceless men living in freight train yards and back alleys. The murderer is never caught but Laura and Emory, her father, never give up hope of finding him. Now, twenty-five years later, Laura’s daughter has fallen in love with Jack Mahoney, a policeman working crowd control with the strikers at the Telephone Company.

Right now Mahoney is a rookie, he has little or no power but Emory is hopeful he is the one person who can ultimately find Franklin’s killer and deliver the justice the family has long awaited.

This is the story of three generations of a family starting about 1920 and ending in 1955 ... Emory and Rose, Laura and Franklin and Christine and Jack.

Emory and Rose have a daughter named Laura.  Laura marries a stockbroker named Franklin and they have a daughter named Christine.  Franklin is murdered by a client during the stock market crash of 1929 and the killer disappears and isn't caught.  Christine grows up fatherless and eventually marries a police officer and they have a three children.

This is the tenth book I've read by this author and I enjoyed it.  Though this is the fifth in the Wyattsville series (I've read them all), they also work as stand alones.  It is written in third person perspective, though some chapters are in first person perspective ... they are short and italicized and the name of the person is at the beginning of these chapters so you know who the focus is.  This style works for me as it lets me get into their heads and know what they were thinking.

I'm enjoying this series and look forward to more.

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