The Fugitive Grandma By Dmitri Ragano

At once a crime thriller, black comedy and family drama wrapped into one poignant and satirical novel.

Deep in the heart of California's dysfunctional, strip-mall suburbs, the city of Santa Ramona is besieged by a pair of unlikely bandits.  Johnny Valentine is a lonely boy who dreams of becoming a hero, just like the masked avengers of his comic books.  His feisty grandmother Stella is a retired supermarket clerk and cancer survivor with a fierce sense of justice.  Running out of time, money and options, the old lady is driven to make one last, great contribution to the world.

Together the boy and his grandma devise a Robin-Hood style scheme to rob a ruthless retail conglomerate, stealing cash and medicine for the sick and needy.  As their crime spree continues, the citizens of Santa Ramona wonder how to judge the crazy, young boy and his fugitive grandma.  Are Johnny and Stella Valentine a menace to society?  Or are they the only ones trying to save it?

~ My thoughts~

I really enjoyed this book.  The premise is something that could happen in any neighborhood at any time.  Here is a normal, dysfunctional family where a young boys father spends more time trying to make money than trying to be a dad to his son.  The grandmother takes up the slack because there is no mother in the picture since she divorced the Dad for another man with more money.  The father has financial problems, his mother has trusted him with her finances since she is recovering from cancer, and he dips into her money to try to pay off his own debts.  I don't want to give away any juicy parts of the book, so go and get yourself a copy and rest assured that you will enjoy every page.

Pinned: A Kentucky True Crime By Charles W. Massie

"I fear the dark and I live all alone...."

Mark Casey, a native New York-er and a gentleman, wants to get out of his home state and live in another part of the world.  Over the internet, he meets and is attracted to a small town Kentucky woman named Roxie.  This woman seems to be the girl of his dreams - sensual, ambitious, funny and beautiful.  After a series of email and phone conversations, Roxie invites Mark to visit her in Kentucky.  The Meeting is magic.  They fall head over heels for each other and decide to live together.

But like the flip of a switch, there are immediate problems as soon as he gets in his new abode.  He and Roxie fight, where they never did before.  She constantly tells him lies.  There seems to be a black cloud around Roxie, where someone always gets hurt.  And their once raging sexual relationship has turned sour, causing them to sleep apart.  What could have caused this abyss?

This is a true story of flagrant injustice in a small country town.  It is a page whipping account of sex, drugs, manipulation, false arrest, corrupt public officials and good 'ol boys who take rather than give.

See what it is like to be trapped in the nest of a Black Widow.  Read the story and be Pinned.

~My thoughts~
I liked this book from the start.  It was an easy read for me.  The author is good at telling a story.  There were a few typoes, but nothing that distracted me from the story.  There was more sex in the story than I liked, but the author does warn you at the beginning of the book that it is part of the story.  Of course, the ending left me hanging and I am looking forward to the sequel to find out the rest of the story.