Review: Provides an entertaining few hours
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 10 31, 2011
A Dozen Deadly Roses, e-book by Kathy Bennett is a police/mystery story following the daily schedule of a single mother police officer.The prologue presents Jade Donovan, a probationary police officer on patrol with her partner, responding to a situation that leads to deadly gunplay. The story proper opens 5 years later when Jade receives another gold florist's box containing  a bouquet of dead roses. She continues to receive them, each time containing one less rose.Meanwhile, Jade is now the probationary control officer with her former partner, Mac Stryker, as her probationer. He had become an alcoholic as a result of tragically losing his wife and daughter some years before, had recovered and reapplied for officer status.  The relationship is highly complicated because of their previous relationship, the existence of Jade's son, and her recovered alcoholic father who now was living with another recovered alcoholic woman. Added to the mix were a woman lieutenant who disliked Jade and a captain whom Jade had encountered in a compromising situation.The plot is rather thin but the author handles the complicated situation well enough and provides enough interest in the protagonist to involve the reader in the often headstrong and not particularly well thought-out decisions made by the two officers. The overriding psychological baggage carried by the two makes the decisions credible.In summary, A Dozen Deadly Roses provides an entertaining few hours. Reviewed by John H. Manhold, award winning fiction/non-fiction author.