All He Saw Was The Girl by Peter Leonard
Published by The Story Plant
ISBN-10: 1611880424
ISBN-13: 978-1611880427
At the request of The Story Plant, an ARC digital version was provided, at no cost to me, for my honest opinion.
Synopsis (from publisher):
Rome:
McCabe and Chip, two American exchange students, are about to become embroiled with a violent street gang, a beautiful Italian girl, and a flawed kidnapping plan.
Detroit:
Sharon Vanelli’s affair with Joey Palermo, a Mafia enforcer, is about to be discovered by her husband, Ray, a secret service agent.
Brilliantly plotted and shot through with wry humor, ALL HE SAW WAS THE GIRL sees these two narratives collide in the backstreets of Italy’s oldest city.
My Thoughts and opinion: I was first introduced to this author when I read, Voices of the Dead, which I thoroughly enjoyed due to his writing style, his character development and descriptive settings, however, I am always a bit skeptical when I start to read a follow up novel. Will it be as good? Have I set my expectations too high and compare it to the first book?
All He Saw Was The Girl, just like Voices of the Dead, within the first few pages the book pulled me in with the introduction of a few of the characters that the author brought to life. Chip and McCabe, 2 students studying in Italy. Then Sharon, a lonesome wife from Detroit, married to a secret service agent, is injected into the story line. Characters, so different and on different ends of the spectrum, had this reader wondering what is their connection? The suspense starts and builds, like a ticking time bomb with one kidnapping that has gone bad, and continues with the tumultuous “mob” related cat and mouse chase of another kidnapping through the streets of Italy.
What I like about Peter Leonard’s books is that he creates the cast of characters, with the reader not knowing the connection, and in a very fluid manner, interweaves them all into an intricate plot. Another aspect of his writing that I enjoy is that he alternates chapters with different characters and leaves the reader with mini cliff hangers that it’s a “one more chapter” read to find out what happens and I found that I had read many more chapters than one. The detailed descriptions of Italy were vivid, and for me, factual as I had seen and visited many of the locales that he used as his settings. The action fast paced, with twists and turns of suspense and a bit of dry humor thrown in.
Did All He Saw Was The Girl meet my expectations, yes! It was what I call “a transport read”, where I was so engrossed into the story that I was unaware of what was going on around me. A page turner!! Would I recommend it, absolutely!!! Only one problem now, waiting for his next novel!!
The resort’s beach and pools were a book paradise!! Everywhere you looked, people were reading print versions or reading from their Kindle, Kindle Fires and/or Ipads. Being newsy as to what people were reading, I did start conversations on the beach with those who had palapas (huts) near us. One thing I don’t like about the digital books is you can’t sneak a peek as to what someone is reading so I just asked. I even invited some to check out the book blogging community. I received quite a few books while away and will share those for Monday’s Mailbox.
Blogging:
Aruba:
inspired me to write. I penned a few truly terrible “novellas” at age twelve, then put fiction aside for many years as I pursued my education.
In high school, my favorite authors were the unlikely combination of Victoria Holt and Sinclair Lewis. I loved Holt’s flair for romantic suspense and Lewis’s character studies as well as his exploration of social values, and both those authors influenced the writer I am today.
education major before moving to San Diego, where I received both my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in social work from San Diego State University. After graduating, I worked in a couple of youth counseling agencies and then focused on medical social work, which I adored. I worked at Sharp Hospital in San Diego and Children’s Hospital in Washington, D.C. before opening a private psychotherapy practice in Alexandria, Virginia, specializing in adolescents. I reluctantly closed my practice in 1992 when I realized that I could no longer split my time between two careers and be effective at both of them.
It was while I was working in San Diego that I started writing. I’d had a story in my mind since I was a young adolescent about a group of people living together at the Jersey Shore. While waiting for a doctor’s appointment one day, I pulled out a pen and pad began putting that story on paper. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. I took a class in fiction writing, but for the most part, I “learned by doing.” That story, PRIVATE RELATIONS, took me four years to complete. I sold it in 1986, but it wasn’t published until 1989 (three very long years!), when it earned me the RITA award for Best Single Title Contemporary Novel. Except for a brief stint writing for daytime TV (One Life to Live) and a few miscellaneous articles for newspapers and magazines, I’ve focused my efforts on book-length fiction and am currently working on my nineteenth novel.
to live with. Although my RA is under good control with medication and I can usually type for many hours a day, I sometimes rely on voice recognition technology to get words on paper. I’m very grateful to the inventor of that software! I lived in Northern Virginia until the summer of 2005, when I moved to North Carolina, the state that inspired so many of my stories and where I live with my significant other, photographer John Pagliuca. I have three grown stepdaughters,
