{"id":6401,"date":"2025-05-05T08:24:04","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T15:24:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=6401"},"modified":"2025-05-05T08:24:04","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T15:24:04","slug":"jenny-adams-a-poisonous-silence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/jenny-adams-a-poisonous-silence\/","title":{"rendered":"Jenny Adams: A Poisonous Silence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Deadly Twenties #2<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I think the mark of a good writer is often seen in book two of a series.\u00a0 In book one, the author has put in everything \u2013 every twinkly, sparkly element they\u2019ve had in mind forever.\u00a0 When it works, it\u2019s magical.\u00a0 Jenny Adams\u2019 debut, A Deadly Endeavor, <\/em>was just such a beginning.\u00a0 Excellent, rich, main characters, interesting setting, and good storyline.\u00a0 In this book, the second in her series, she proves her chops, with a more focused plot line and continuing the development of her main characters, who are estranged as the book opens.<\/p>\n

The story follows Philadelphia socialite Edie Shippen, and a war veteran\/doctor suffering from what we would now recognize as PTSD, Dr. Gilbert Lawless.\u00a0 Gil has recently given up a dependence on morphine and taken up boxing to still the demons he wrestles with.\u00a0 It\u2019s 1921, and he served in WWI.\u00a0 Gil is also the widowed father of a young daughter, who lives with his parents.<\/p>\n

The hook: Edie has set up shop \u2013 after her shenanigans in the first book \u2013 as a private detective, thinking she will be handling lost dogs or missing jewelry.\u00a0 Instead, a woman appears at her door looking for justice regarding the poisoning death of her neighbor.\u00a0 She\u2019s sure the wife is guilty of the crime.\u00a0 Coincidentally, this is the same death Gil was called in on to investigate in his job as coroner.\u00a0 While Edie isn\u2019t quite sure she\u2019s up to a murder, she sets out to solve it anyway.\u00a0 When another death occurs, and the two men appear to be linked through the mob bosses they worked for, the murders begin to draw unwelcome attention from the bosses.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the third death that\u2019s a puzzle.\u00a0 Edie had been at a party with Gil when her long time friend Ava, an actress, announces her marriage to her leading man.\u00a0 She invites Edie to watch the filming of her movie \u2013 Romeo and Juliet \u2013 <\/em>when the leading man is struck down during filming, an apparent poisoning.<\/p>\n

These are the crimes that kick off the story, and the threads that draw Gil and Edie back together.\u00a0 Gil is holding himself somewhat aloof from Edie, thinking to himself he can romance a \u201cfine\u201d girl at his work, but the attraction between Edie and Gil is a powerful one, and this novel certainly has elements of romance throughout.\u00a0 With her lively story telling style and romantic elements, Adams reminds me very much of Ashley Weaver, whose Amory Ames series wrapped up in 2020.\u00a0 If you\u2019re a fan of that series, check out these books.<\/p>\n

As Gil and Edie get closer to a solution the threads of their lives converge.\u00a0 Edie\u2019s history with Ava, and her employment of Gil\u2019s sister as her assistant, come to the fore, as does Gil\u2019s history with the neighborhood \u201cboss,\u201d Tommy, who makes no bones about wanting to know how his man was struck down.\u00a0 I thought the solution was pretty ingenious.\u00a0 What stays with me about this series, though, are the main characters of Edie and Gil, who are human and relatable with all their flaws and virtues.\u00a0 Adams also has a knack for pacing, which is not as common as you might think.<\/p>\n

This series looks to be settling in for a long run, and I very much look forward to seeing what Edie and Gil get up to in the next book.\u00a0— Robin Agnew<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Deadly Twenties #2 I think the mark of a good writer is often seen in book two of a series.\u00a0 In book one, the author has put in everything \u2013 every twinkly, sparkly element they\u2019ve had in mind forever.\u00a0 When it works, it\u2019s magical.\u00a0 Jenny Adams\u2019 debut, A Deadly Endeavor, was just such a beginning.\u00a0 … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1596,2095,943,2096,1594,742,1276],"class_list":["post-6401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-1921-philly","tag-a-poisonous-silence","tag-crooked-lane-books","tag-deadly-twenties","tag-jenny-adams","tag-poison","tag-robin-agnew"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6401"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6403,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6401\/revisions\/6403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}