Room for Doubt by Nancy Cole Silverman - #review #giveaway

When radio reporter Carol Childs is called to a crime scene in the Hollywood Hills at five thirty in the morning, she’s convinced it must be a publicity stunt to promote a new movie. That is, until she sees the body hanging from the center of the Hollywood sign. The police are quick to rule it a suicide, but something doesn’t add up for Carol. Particularly after a mysterious caller named Mustang Sally confesses to the murder on the air and threatens to kill again.


With the help of an incorrigible PI, her best friend, and a kooky psychic, Carol is drawn into the world of contract killers and women scorned. As she races to find the real killer, she finds herself faced with a decision that will challenge everything she thought she knew.

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MY REVIEW

I know reporters get frustrated sometimes by the lack of information received from police on active investigations, even if there is a good reason for it.  (How many times has withholding certain details about the crime been helpful in identifying the guilty parter?  More than a few, for sure.)  But for Carol Childs, who reports news for a local radio station and has been to multiple crime scenes for her job in the past, the frustration doubles when it seems that the police are not only not giving out a lot of information, but what they do say is just ... wrong.

For some reason, back at the station, they want Carol to do a more 'girly news' type of program.  That was kind of surprising to me, because the station owner is a woman.  But whatever the reason, it kind of backfires on them because a woman claiming responsibility for the murder of the man on the Hollywood sign.  The phone boards light up with callers after that.  'Mustang Sally' (the confessor) said the man was killed because he was a serial abuser of women.  Apparently there are many women listening with similar tales of abuse.

Can a book imitate life any more thoroughly than this?  One look in the newspaper or one listen to the radio or tv should answer that question.  (Can I get a #metoo from the readers?)

Room for Doubt also sets up some serious debate questions about how abusers are to be stopped.  How many women have been seriously injured or killed because police could not do anything unless the abuser was caught in the act?  But does that make it right for the victim or others in their support system (assuming they have not been stripped of it) to become a vigilante posse and take the law into their own hands?  There are no easy answers.

The real jewel here is the story as crafted by author Nancy Cole Silverman.  Room for Doubt entertains with intriguing mystery as it causes us to think about our own beliefs.  Sometimes you read  'light' for pure escapism, and there is nothing wrong with that.  Sometimes you read something with 'more meat' (as I like to say).   Room for Doubt leaves no room for doubt that this read is much, much more.

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MEET THE AUTHOR

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Nancy Cole Silverman credits her twenty-five years in radio for helping her to develop an ear for storytelling. In 2001, Silverman retired from news and copywriting to write fiction full time. In 2014, Silverman signed with Henery Press for her new mystery series, The Carol Childs’ Mysteries. The first of the series, Shadow of Doubt, debuted in December 2014 and the second, Beyond a Doubt, was July 2015. The third, Without A Doubt, was released May 24, 2016. Room for Doubtwas released on July 18, 2017.

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GIVEAWAY!!!

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(Disclosure:  I received a copy of this book from the author and publishers via Great Escapes Virtual Book Tours and NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.)