Thicker Than Blood
by Penny Rudolph
Summary
Thicker Than Blood, slated for softcover release by Poisoned Pen Press, Sept. 2007
ISBN 1-59058-366-1 Tpbk $14.95
Rachel Chavez owns—and lives in—an L.A. parking garage. She’s trying to stay sober and make ends meet. When she discovers a dented car with smudges of what might be blood on the fender, she learns of the hit-and-run death of an executive at InterUrban Water District. This is Chinatown in the 21st century, plus the conflicting emotions of a woman trying to stay afloat and alive, the mixed motives of everyone from activists to bureaucrats, and an eclectic band of misfits who help Rachel solve the crime—from homeless fortune-teller Irene to night-shift office cleaner Goldie.
Excerpt
The window-washer’s platform sank slowly, at first. Then, with a sudden wrench and a shriek of metal, it was gone.
Rachel Chavez clutched at the window casing, legs dangling, arms shrill with pain.
The crash, when it came from below, left a thick-aired deadness in its wake. She braced herself against the wall.
Something slapped against the toe of her sneaker. The platform cable. If she could use it to climb just a foot or so, she might get back through the window.
The cable trembled with a life of its own.
Her numb, blue-white fingers began slipping from the window frame and she barely had time to weave her legs about the steel rope.
She loosened one hand and moved it higher, then the other. The ridge of the window casing appeared, emptying the world of everything else. Higher. Once more. Now.
Beyond thought, she coiled herself like a snake and lunged.
Her body seemed to hang weightless in mid-air.
Then, as if she had left one life and entered another, she was lying on the office floor, gulping air, scarcely aware of the sirens throbbing on the street below.
Rachel wobbled to her feet. Breath like ground glass in her lungs, legs threatening to buckle, she ran as if a mouse in some dimly remembered maze through dark corridors, down stairs, more stairs. She lurched through the empty lobby and unsteadily made her way down the steps of the inert escalator. The stripes of steel made her dizzy.
At last, the cafeteria. She tried to weave her way among the tables but knocked some askew. The kitchen. The back door.
A Dumpster loomed in the darkness like a bunker.
On the side street, in the building’s shadow, Rachel waited until her heaving, sputtering breathing slowed.
As if returning from an evening stroll, she passed the three squad cars and an ambulance, clustered like a pack of dogs at the building’s entrance, and crossed the street to the parking garage.
She was inserting the key into the lock when a blue-white light exploded, pinning her against the door like a butterfly on an exhibit board.
Mind gone feeble, all she could think was that she was sure to go back to jail.
But at least she could stop wondering about Jason.
Reviews
"One of the most refreshing new heroines to wander into the crime genre in quite a while." **Starred Booklist Review
"Rudolph gets it all right... Water is what makes Thicker Than Blood an important social document." Dick Adler, Chicago Tribune
“Likeable characters...scenes of breathless action, and situations of barely bearable suspense.” Dick Lochte, Orange County (CA)
Author's Biography
Penny Rudolph has worked as a bartender, truck driver, chile picker, science writer and medical writer. She’s also taught English, creative writing, and journalism. She’s the author of two mystery/thrillers, Lifeblood and Thicker Than Blood, and an historical mystery/thriller Listen to the Mockingbird.
PennyRudolph.com