Review: Nowhere Prologue & Tepid End Ruin Good Read
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 02 11, 2014
Hemphill Towers was a fast-paced book that kept me on the edge of my seat as three friends’ lives are changed in one night.  Stella, who I believe is the Creative Director at an ad agency is hopelessly in love with the owner, J. B. Edwards, who has never noticed her as anything but the competent executive she is. Birdie’s position is never fully described. Riley is the Art Director, and the three are best friends. When they decide to try a new Italian restaurant, they have no idea J. B. is there with an old friend, who falls for Birdie the moment he sees her across the room.  J. B. finally notices Stella when wine spills on her, and Riley falls into the lap of wheel-chair-bound Dierk Rosenthal, who asks her out.  She agrees to the date, a day-trip to Chicago’s Art Institute.The date with Rosenthal does not go well. First they take a side-trip to a doctor’s office where Riley overhears part of an apparent argument ending with the doctor telling Rosenthal not to return. Then, when he leaves her at the museum to use the restroom, a man comments on a painting she’s admiring, and tells her he’s the artist’s son. Rosenthal accuses her of flirting with the man and expresses contempt for art, sending up red flags in Riley’s opinion of him. She decides not to continue dating Rosenthal, who does not take no for an answer and becomes a dangerous stalker. The man from the museum turns out to be Trent Peterson, a client of the ad agency.Tensions build as Birdie encounters the Russian mafia in Italy, and Rosenthal’s anger grows. He blames all of his problems on Riley and finally decides to take his ultimate revenge on her. She has to die.Finally, there was a prologue that went nowhere. At first, I thought maybe Riley was the girl in the prologue, and her stalker had caught up with her. Then I thought the girl in the prologue would somehow figure in the stalker’s end. Neither was true. It didn’t even introduce Dierk Rosenthal as the stalker.In the rest of the book, the tension built up beautifully, but the end was tepid at best. I was extremely disappointed. I would have loved to have given this book at least four roses, but it barely rates three.