Lifeblood

by Penny Rudolph

Book Overview

Rachel Chavez, a recovering alcoholic, owns and lives in an apartment on the top floor of a parking garage in downtown Los Angeles. She leases parking space and the use of the rooftop helicopter pad... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1590583469
• ISBN13: 9781590583463
• Release Date: September 2007
• Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
• Length: 316 Pages
• Weight: 1.26 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.8" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Rachel Chavez Returns

Penning a sequel to a well-received first novel can be tricky. Especially if that first novel was the intriguing Thicker Than Blood, featuring popular Los Angeles garage owner Rachel Chavez, and peopled with well-drawn supporting characters that we all wanted to see more of. Well, fret no more. Albuquerque author Penny Rudolph has produced a winning sophomore effort in which Rachel returns in top form. As a recovering alcoholic with an arrest record, she can still be her own worst enemy, afraid of reporting suspicious incidents to the police, and so doggedly pursues an investigation that she knows professionals will ignore. Rachel discovers a locked van in her garage with the bodies of two Hispanic children inside, one barely alive. She quickly takes both to nearby Jefferson Hospital and checks them in through the emergency room. Good citizen Rachel returns the next day to find no record of either child having been admitted. Since the police would have nothing to investigate, Rachel is on her own. Why no record? What's going on in the mysterious fourth-floor ward at the hospital? Complicating Rachel's search for answers are fascinating subplots that Penny Rudolph is known for. Her fiancé Hank is pressing her to name a wedding date. Her compulsive gambler father Marty is on a winning streak and wants to shower her with gifts. Office cleaning shift boss Goldie again provides emotional and practical support to Rachel's bouts of frustration and anxiety. And her friend Irene, a street person, helps out at the garage and bucks up Rachel's courage. And she needs courage. Two attempts on her life leave her and Hank seriously wounded. Where is Marty after a big win? Why can't she contact him? Do some of the hospital staff, doctors and a pharmacist Rachel is drawn to, have anything to do with the missing children? And are the attacks on her related to her investigation? She has to deal with a frightening "don" of the Mexican Mafia and starts to carry a pistol. None too soon. If Rachel is to keep her own "lifeblood," she'll have to become her own bodyguard.

entertaining "blood" suspense thriller

Rachel Chavez lives over the downtown Los Angeles parking garage she owns. Rachel becomes upset when she finds two young Mexican children locked inside a van parked in her garage. Stunned, she gets the kids out of the vehicle and rushes them to Jefferson Hospital. However, she is informed one died while the other one who is badly dehydrated clings to life and will remain at the hospital. The next day, Rachel returns to Jefferson to see how the survivor is doing only to learn there is no record of either child. While the hospital administration wants Rachel to leave, the shocked woman ignores them and begins a search for the still living child who has vanished somewhere in the endless corridors of Jefferson. The latest "blood" suspense thriller (see THICKER THAN BLOOD) is an entertaining tale as Rachel and two of her buds search the labyrinth known as Jefferson Hospital in search of the missing surviving child. The story line is fast-paced although somewhat seemingly implausible as the trio of females run across other nefarious secrets hidden by the hospital as if the quest itself is not enough to fill the story line. Still fans will care for Rachel and her cohorts to rescue the child, but they wonder form what. Harriet Klausner