Her sister’s Death

Her sister’s death review

Crime scenes are not pretty and viewing death and be horrific. Val is a reporter and often received calls at any hour to come to a crime scene. Just the site of the body or the photos taken and alter your feelings and make her wonder why she could not resist doing this job and assessing the scenes. But, asking questions was her strong suit and researching information to help understand the crimes she witnessed would add to her stress at times until the next crime scene she deals with will send her on a trail of deception, deceits and betrayals as the scene and question she needs answered is why did her gorgeous sister Sylvia take her own life or did she?

Val Ritter as a crime reporter for a paper in Baltimore, has to decide how to uncover how her sister really died. Sylvia overdosed they think on drugs while staying at the Franklin Hotel whose history the author reveals in many scenes letting you know that there’s something evil that lurks within the walls and at times affects people who might commit crimes and have no control over their actions. The police close it as a suicide case but Val refuses to accept that. An incidental meeting with Terry Martin a former police detective and now heading his own security firm, becomes her only ally. Wyatt , Sylvia’s husband is considered a suspect and with Terry’s connections and the head of security, Billy at this hotel they uncover from the videos taken from when her sister checked into the hotel till she was found and after. 

The author introduces a second plot which takes place in 1921. Bridget Wallace has been you might say sold to Lawrence Hartwood by her parents cat a hefty price, to save her father’s business. Bridget you can tell does not want to marry him and even visits his ex-wife and she relates is terrifying. Why is she forced to go through with the wedding and when you read what her short marriage and life consisted of you the reader will decide whether justice was done and what happened to Bridget after being abused, berated and controlled by a sadistic man with an uncontrollable temper.

In the present Val teams up with Terry and uses his skills as a detective and hers as a reporter yo uncover the truth. An empty pill bottle at the scene of her death brings the police to the wrong conclusion. 

Searching for any information and hoping to make sense of her sister’s death, Val takes a hard look at Wyatt her sister’s husband , learns he cheated on her and he relates about another suicide at the same hotel. Stories circulated about the hotel over the years and for a time it was dubbed the Mad Hotel . According to his grandfather people die there and there was one guy that killed his whole family right before Che killed himself. It gets even more chilling each time the author flashes back to the scenes with Bridget and Lawrence. He’s sick, diabolical and so controlling no one seems to uncover his evilness until someone does but in the end who wins?

Bridget knew from the start she was doomed and a hardness formed in the pit of her stomach and she just wanted to run but did not.  Nerves or fear?

Sylvia came to the hotel to sort out her life and her feelings for Wyatt and when Val and Terry search for clues she can’t find her last diary which might help uncover her last moments and thoughts. Even her sister did not understand. 

Confrontations with Wyatt, police one who wants to help and the other wants it closed, detective Barnes after speaking with Wyatt gets one story and she gives another. Reviewing how her sleeping pills work and the affect it has  and where she got the prescriptions and who wrote them , leaves them wondering when the ME’s report states that the level of toxicity is much more than the dosage she was prescribed. 

The plot takes many paths and the author winds many more paths for Val to follow including we learn about a mysterious person initials S.M.but who is it? This leads her to believe her sister had a boyfriend and Wyatt was seeing Dani who turns out to have her own insecurities and motives for her actions that follow. As the author flips back and forth from the present to the past, you won’t believe just how it comes together, why Terry was helping her and his own connection to the past. A story of love, hate, greed, power, control, abuse, and fear but for some reason, Terry sticks by her, and the interactions are strained, remarkable, and deceptive when we get to meet Steven Morris and the inside of Dani. Text messages Val received interactions with Wyatt, conflicting emotional setbacks, and investigating when each person might have seen it been with Sylvia. Did Sylvia try and find some good in Wyatt and what about his children? Everything at the hotel points to suicide and the overdose of her original prescription which was half the amount. Was she suffering from deep-seated depression and what would her therapist say?

As Val meets with Steven, Terry questions Wyatt and you won’t believe the astounding revelation and encounter plus truths the author creates. What happened and who killed Sylvia and was that the price intention of the killer? Just how does the evil that lurks on the Franklin’s 13th floor come into play at the end? Where does Val wind up? What about Terry and wait until he reveals something you won’t believe as the past intertwines with the present and the end result will give you more than the truth about Her Sister’s Death.

Fran Lewis just reviews