Mary DiNunzio — South Philadelphia attorney, good Catholic girl and dutiful daughter — is an over-worked lawyer. That we know in the first couple pages. Now her father wants to sue a woman from The Neighborhood for saying disparaging things against Sinatra. She is also dealing with finding assistance for a learning-disabled boy and his desperate mother.
Just when you think she has too much on her plate, and old high school bully, Trish, shows up and claims she is being abused by her boyfriend (who as it turns out used to date Mary as well) and she would like a restraining order against him. Reality is, the boyfriend is in the mob and a restraining order would not help matters. Mary tells her this, and Trish storms out.
Of course Mary can’t help but feel a bit triumphant that Trish, the girl who “flunked Religion, chain-smoked her way through Spanish I twice and reigned as the quintessential Mean Girl,” is looking for assistance from her, “the myopic, straight-A president of the National Honor Society, the May Queen, and the all-around Most Likely to Achieve Sainthood.” Maybe her life has turned around after all.
In spite of the fact that Trish wants Mary’s help, she still has not learned that you catch more flies with honey. It takes only a few minutes for Trish to revert to insulting Mary and making her feel like the “Holy Mary” she was in high school.
Even after Trish walks out of the law office, Mary does everything humanly possible to try to find her once she is claimed as “missing” from her friends and family. She practically drives all over the state following the mob trying to find her as public opinion is that Trish’s mob boyfriend has killed her.
I won’t say more about the plot of the book as I really do feel this is a must read. It is very nicely written and believable. There isn’t anything written that would make you think twice as to whether it would really happen that way.
Two things about this book annoyed me though. One is what I would consider a biggie, while the other not so much.
In multiple place the phrase “Mary tried not to get discouraged” appears so many times in the it becomes annoying to read and we think Mary is weak or a downer or something. If it had only appeared once I would have nodded and thought “yeah really, who wouldn’t think that” But it appeared about four times. After the second time, I started thinking: “Well maybe you should just go home if you are such a downer”.
The second thing is on page 323 “she was supposed to call him back three years ago…” appears. I’m pretty sure this was meant to say three DAYS ago, as she was out looking for Trish for three days in the country and her cell phone wasn’t working and she was staking out houses. This sentence made me stop and re-read it over and over which made me lose my momentum. So even if it isn’t a mistake, it is poorly placed. This book flows very easily, so when you are forced to stop and re-read something it is pretty jarring.
I must say however, that I found no (at least not glaring) spelling mistakes. I know this should be a no brainer as editors are paid for just this reason, but you would be amazed how often it comes up.
LADY KILLER is a fun book with lots of adventure. I would recommend this book to everyone who likes a good, easy read with a twist at the end.
