Thicker Than Blood: A Rachel Chavez Mystery

by Penny Rudolph

Book Overview

"Rudolph provides a well-crafted plot and satisfying levels of suspense, but what stands out most is Rachel herself--one of the most refreshing new series heroines to wander into the crime genre in quite a while." --Booklist STARRED review

For Rachel Chavez, every day is a battle with her demons. She only wants to stay sober and keep her recently inherited parking lot in downtown LA financially afloat. But it's a nearly 24/7...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1590583663
• ISBN13: 9781590583661
• Release Date: August 2007
• Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.88 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.4" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Can Water Be Thicker Than Blood?

Rachel Chavez is a survivor. In spite of her father's lack of support, his loss of the family farm and fortune, her mother's death, and her own addiction to drugs and alcohol she is determined to make the Park-Rite Garage her grandfather built and left to her a success. She works hard to keep her clients happy, taking delivery of packages brought to her helicopter pad, opening cars with the keys inside, changing tires, and generally babysitting their expensive vehicles while the work. But when she finds a car that she suspects could have been used in a hit and run, it starts a ball rolling that gathers no moss, but does gather bodies, all of them dead. And it looks like someone is trying to add Rachel to that number. Penny Rudolph has done it again. She has built a world of grim and crime around a gutsy woman struggling to survive in spite of the odds against her, and still be a lady. Reviewed by Wanda C. Keesey

Review: Thicker Than Blood

BOOK REVIEW Thicker Than Blood Penny Rudolph Poisoned Pen Press, 2005 ISBN # 1-59058-148-2 "Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink." That’s because the water’s poisoned. But by whom, and why? Answering those questions becomes a matter of life and death for Rachel Chavez, who lives in the parking garage she owns in Los Angeles. Rachel carries around a bit of personal baggage which might be called severe copophobia, a residual of her days as an alcoholic and drug addict, though she’s been clean for some time, and intends to stay that way. Rachel’s problems begin when she finds a car parked in her garage which she believes was used as a murder weapon, to eliminate Jason Karl, Director of the InterUrban Water District. She would like to inform the police, but can’t bring herself to trust them, so she begins to investigate on her own. In this pursuit, she gets help from a charming bunch of supporting characters including Goldie, the housekeeping honcho; Irene, the fortune-telling lady; and Hank, tall and handsome, whose relationship with Rachel begins with a knee (hers) in a groin (his), and pursues an erratic course from there. Rachel also needs to contend with her poker-addicted father, Marty; an amorous, wealthy farmer and old family friend, Bruno Calabrese; Lonnie, an old high-school acquaintance and now her employee and possibly a drug addict; Charlotte Emerson, a highly-placed InterUrban executive; Alexandra Miller, of Protectors of the Earth, and an aviatrix, who befriends Rachel after saving her from a mugger; and Harry Hunsinger, another InterUrban executive who has a sideline job that’s a bit unusual. Water’s precious in southwestern California, and as InterUrban’s goals come into conflict with both farmers and conservationists, tempers flare and bodies accumulate at an alarming rate, all of them, it seems, in the presence of Rachel Chavez. If only she could go to the cops...but she can’t. Fortunately, she’s blessed with adrenal glands that never stop secreting. The action never slows as Rachel and her supporters and adversaries careen through Los Angeles to Farwell Ponds, where ducks and other wildlife are dying in huge numbers, to an isolated cabin in the mountains, owned by the parents of a state trooper, to...well, I can’t tell you that; it would spoil the story... where Rachel confronts the murderer in a private face-to-face battle. As I’ve mentioned, the pacing of this story ranges from frantic through frenetic to frenzied; pages turn at an alarming rate. If ever a book was a romp, it’s this one - though hardly a romp in the park for Rachel. The characters, minor as well as major, are fully-developed and sympathetic. The plotting is complex and thorough - no loose ends or false teasers, and the various elements come together at the end with a large bang. I suspect there’s a series lurking here, and I look forward to the next installment of the Adventures of Rachel, the Indefatigable and Indomitable Garage

intriguing... enough for three books...

I picked this book to read because the opening pages establish Rachel, the main character, as a strong, independent, female lead. The book opens with Rachel changing a flat for a (male) client in the parking garage she owns. The client is soon dead and the mystery commences. This was NOT a book I felt comfortable settling into to read. We are soon told Rachel has a chequered past. Her mother is dead and her father is a compulsive gambler. She is running a garage because that is all she has. Boom - that's the end of the character development for Rachel! From then on it's a frantic pace of plot twists, accumulations of allies out of nowhere on one meeting's notice, and a series of bizarre events, chases, and further deaths. Penny Rudolph DOES succeed in keeping you guessing what's really going on. Rachel herself takes awhile to catch on. What I liked about this book was the background of the water politics and conflicts between farmers, government agencies, and environmentalists. What I wished about this book was more convincing characters, character interrelations, and plot twists. I felt like saying, "slow down a bit!" There are enough characters, plots, chase scenes, fight scenes, and mcguffins for three books worth of development!".

strong Southern California water war mystery

In Los Angeles, Rachel Chavez lives in the parking garage that she owns across the street from her best customer the Interurban Water District. Rachel knows how important it is to keep the management of Interurban happy with her service; for instance she changed the flat tire on the vehicle of General Manager Jason Karl and has allowed late working water engineer Hank Sullivan a few extra minutes past lock up. Rachel notices that one of the Interurban cars parked in her garage has a bad scratch, a busted fender, and what appears to be blood on it. Not long afterward, Rachel hears on the news that Jason died in a hit and run accident. She wonders if she has the murder vehicle parked inside her facility. Fearing to tell the cops as she is a former addict and drunk convict, she is encouraged by a cleaning crew manager and an environmentalist who rescues her from a mugger. She begins to wonder if Hank, who she likes, killed his boss over a water dispute. Though Rachel illogically does not seem street wise, readers will take immense delight in the latest Southern California water war mystery. The story line is character driven by the heroine's conscience as Rachel ponders the ethical question of telling the authorities knowing that means trouble for her. Interestingly and what makes the novel, she does not turn into super amateur sleuth, but instead is dragged along the way and learns the truth when the culprit decides to cleanse her. Readers will compare positively Rachel with Jake Gittes (see CHINATOWN and THE TWO JAKES) in this twenty-first century tale in which water is becoming more like oil. Harriet Klausner