Working Stiff-Annelise Ryan

Working Stiff
Annelise Ryan
Kensington, Aug 25 2009, $22.00
ISBN: 075823452X

She thought she had the perfect marriage and perfect job working at the same hospital as her husband Dr. David Winston as he was a surgeon and she is a surgeon’s nurse. However Mattie Winston’s world collapsed when she caught him with another nurse Karen Owenby. Without a word, she rushes home, packs her bags, and visits her best friend medical examiner Izzy, who gives her a home in his guest cottage and hires her; training her to be a deputy coroner.

When Mattie learns that Karen is at the home she once shared with David, she cannot stop herself from peaking through a window. What she observes horrifies her as the pair argues heatedly until David throttles her. Later that same night, Izzy and Mattie are called to a homicide scene where a female corpse has two bullets in her head. The victim is Karen. Suspicion falls rightfully on David, but though she is angry and acrimonious with him and knows what she saw at their house, Mattie refuses to believe he would kill anyone. A second murder implicates David further as Detective Steve Hurley finds evidence hanging Mattie's soon to be ex at a time the cop and the trainee are attracted to one another and he realizes she should be a prime suspect as a betrayed wife.

The story line is fast-paced from the moment that Mattie realizes her spouse is a womanizing cheat, but not a killer and never slows down as the heroine risks her life (to the chagrin of her boss and the detective) to catch the culprit. Fascinatingly though she is a WORKING STIFF as an apprentice deputy coroner, the enjoyable story line reads in may ways like an amateur sleuth as she has little experience on homicide investigations. Fans will enjoy Annelise Ryan’s fun investigative tale, the opening act of a new series.

Harriet Klausner