Girls With Guns by Carsen Taite, Michelle Grubb, Ali Vali

Girls With Guns
by Carsen Taite, Michelle Grubb, Ali Vali
Pages: 240
Date: April 12 2016
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Series: N/A

Review
Rating: 4.85, 4.74, and 3.0 out of 5.0
Read: March 29 2016

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and Bold Strokes Books in exchange for an honest review.

This is a book containing short works by three different authors. Michelle Grubb, Carsen Taite, and Ali Vali. Vali is someone who has been on my radar for two or more years now. This will be my first time reading something by her. Grubb and Taite were, oddly enough, two I looked at for the first time earlier this month. I am not certain, though, if I checked them out this month because of this book, or because I'd spotted their names among books read by friends and others. I occasionally go through authors other people have read and liked, and believe I checked Taite and Grubb out because of that tactic.

First Story: Bow and Arrow by Carsen Taite
The first story in the book, despite the line up of the authors on the cover, is Bow and Arrow by Carsen Taite. As noted, this is my first story by this author. So I do not know if Luca Bennett, Jessica Chance, or, for that matter, if Teresa Perez or Cris Perez-Soria have appeared in anything by Taite before now (ETA: there is a three book Luca Bennett series that Chance appears in. Going by the book descriptions, this story here might be considered 3.5 (not rating, but series order number; three books then this short story). I know books like this have a tendency to have one of three types of stories – (1) a story involving a character from a series (either as a cameo or as the lead character in the story); (2) a completely new set of characters; or (3) stories by different authors that are, in some way, linked together by character, story, events, or some other issue. I do not know, yet, which category these stories in the book fall under.

Bow and Arrow follows Luca Bennett, ex-cop, and current bounty hunter. The story starts with her returning to work after having been shot. At work she's a bounty hunter, so it's a good thing that she's on the hunt for a fugitive (since that's what they pay her to do). She’d rather be at home wiggling around with her love, Jessica Chance, but her boss would be annoyed if she didn’t actually return to work at some point. So there she is, in her car, watching a place she believes a suspect is located. She has her dog Cash with her.

Relatively easily . . . well, I’ll go ahead and note this issue. She momentarily captures the fugitive but he has information on another fugitive, someone by the name of Teresa Perez. Another ex-cop, and someone who had previous run-ins with Chance and Bennett (a kidnapping of Chance was mentioned, the part where Bennett had been shot might be related, but not sure – the events that occur in this story kind of lead me to believe I might be following up on a previous story). Perez is someone both Chance and Bennett really want. So Bennett is going to go after her.

Just a quick note – I do not know why I keep calling her Bennett, I believe she gets called Luca a lot more often, but I got kind of trapped there in which names to use.

Okay then, the story will be about a former cop, current bounty hunter who will be investigating a fugitive cop (though she herself had not specifically been assigned to find said ex-cop). Except . . . complications ensue. Luca has jury-duty. Heh. Kind of neat in its way. Must investigate! Have leads! Must . . . wait? What? Well crap. *sitting impatiently in a jury waiting room . . . waiting for the obvious dismissal . . . waiting. Name called. Waiting for the questions from the lawyers. She’s an ex-cop who lives with a cop, and hunts fugitives, obviously she’s going to be bumped . . . except she isn’t bumped*.

It’s neat to see a case from the jury-perspective, especially through someone who knows investigations and the like. So the story turns to Luca investigating the missing/fugitive cop and attending trial. As a jury-member.

I mentioned another name above. Way way above. That of Cris Perez-Soria. But hadn’t mentioned her yet. She’s a fellow jury-member and really talkative. Really enjoys the chance to be a jury-member. And stuff. She had too many lines, so to speak, for me not to include her name above in the list of people who might have previously appeared in a Taite book.

I rather liked Luca Bennett. And the story was quite neat. I didn’t particularly like Cris, but she’s not the lead so whatever. A few more things before I give a rating: (1) Romance – Jess and Luca are already a couple when this story opens. They appear lovey-dovey, though there are a few complications. (2) Sex – possible I missed it, but there wasn’t any. (3) Mystery/Trial – both were about what I’d expect for a short work and I have no complaints there. (4) Short work - I was at 28% of the file when the story ended. The book is listed as being 240 pages. So that’s 67.2 pages for this part of the book.

This specific short story I’d give a rating of 4.85 out of 5 stars. I’m quite interested in looking into other stories by Carsen Taite, though I have ‘experiences’ with tackling people who write both short and long work. Boiled down – I grew up reading short story collections (best of [insert year]; Treasury of the best [insert genre]) and short story magazines. I found out several things. Short stories are something in and of themselves (and not just fragments of a larger story; though serial stories exist as well). There are good ones, great ones, and crap ones. And the skill to write an outstanding short story does not always translate to the ability to write a great book (and the opposite also applies). There are some authors who I hated when I tried them in short story form (Jack McDevitt), but loved in long form (McDevitt – tried a long form by accident). And some I love in short form, but never really loved anything they wrote long form (many names could go here, I’ll just use Lawrence Block as an example). So, my near 5 star rating for this short story does not mean I’ll instantly love anything and everything by Taite.

Second Story: Hammersmith by Michelle Grubb
As I mentioned, I’ve read none of these authors before, including Grubb. Hammersmith involves a woman named Belinda Riley. She works for an anti-terrorism unit in London England, specifically the unit that monitors the underground (as in the mass-transit trains that run underground; USA – mass transit trains running underground get called subways, not sure ‘underground’ gets used for anything in the USA (except, say, underground railroad (which, to confuse things, wasn't actually a railroad)); UK – mass transit trains running underground get called ‘underground’ (or ‘tube’), ‘subway’ is an underground passage for pedestrians to use. At least these were the definitions in use when I was in London in the ‘90s).

Riley is relatively new in the unit, though she’s been in the police for a while now. She’s 30, but can pass for 21. This is important, not specifically being able to pass as 21, but being able to ‘blend in’, to not look like an obvious cop. Because that’s what she does for half her day, ride around (or stand around on platforms) underground. Other half of the day is spent in training. Oh, and for those who recall the title of this book – ‘Girls with Guns’ and know UK police tend to not be armed, they have special units that are armed, well – as luck would have it, anti-terrorism is one of the units that are armed.

The story consists of Riley riding around on the train, and, separately, unwinding with her current new-ish girlfriend Esther (who is, apparently, around 36). Quite an interesting story, though for a moment there I was recalling how the first story didn’t have sex. And how lesbian romance/fiction tends to at least hint at it. And, for a moment or two, I was thinking that this story here, Hammersmith, was the sex part. Because Riley and Esther spend a rather good amount of time humping. But no, there is also police work as well.

By the way, I’m writing these notes before I’ve finished the story. Not sure how far along I am, though I could be close to the end (I was at the 40% mark when I wrote this sentence, and the story ends at the 63% mark). And I kind of got a feeling about how things are going to unfold. Though they haven’t exactly unfolded yet. As of now, Riley is on alert for a ‘cleaner’ (suicide bomber). And is following orders to get off trains, get on trains, etc.

Note: I read most of this story . . . um, I don’t know how long this story is. Okay, I read the start of this story while on the train. While Riley was on the train. Checking people out. Seeing if they might be a suicide bomber. Hearing something that heightens her alertness . . etc. Quite a way to heighten my own tension and the suspense of the story – to read that while actually being on the train. Conversely, I read the sex part on the train as well. Not exactly where I wish to read about someone being bent over, their pants lowered, and their knickers lowered, and stuff occurs.

More to come . . . now.

Baring the note about sex, I last left things with me hovering in the middle of the story with a strong sense of how things were going to unfold. I was both wrong and right. I can’t really say what I mean without giving too much away.

I feel like a giant hand picked me up, put me into a blender, then a giant finger hovered over a button for a while. Then pressed the button. That’s the way this story made me feel. Like I’d been blended. Or, well, like I’d been put through a blender.

I rather liked Riley. I’m not certain how I feel about anyone else in the story, including Esther, but Riley I liked. It was a rather neat story – the action and adventure, the twists and turns, the danger. Quite exciting. Can’t say anything about the sex, though. There were two sex scenes – one occurred while I was on a crowded train, and the other occurred while I was out in public eating lunch. So I mostly skimmed those parts to make sure I didn’t miss anything, but didn’t get too involved with the graphic sexual stuff. So I can’t say anything about the quality of that specific issue. I know people were dying to know what I thought of the sex. Hehe.

A good story. I’ll look for more by Michelle Grubb. If the story had unfolded the way I thought it might be unfolding I probably would have given the story something around 4 something out of 5 stars. Because it unfolded the way it did unfold, I’d give it closer to 4.75 out of 5 stars.

I’ve now read 63% percent of the book. So, I can say that I’d rate the first 63% of the book 4.8. Oh, and taking up 35% of the book, as ‘Hammersmith’ did, puts it at roughly 84 pages in length. Assuming the second half has ‘extra stuff’ (tiny brief mentions of other books by the publisher) as books by this publisher normally does, then the last story is something shorter than 37% of the whole book (or roughly 88.8 pages).

Third Story: Hell Fire by Ali Vali
Hell Fire involves someone named Dr. Abigail Langois Eaton. And someone named Agent Riley Abbott (shesh, bad parents! Don’t give your kid the first name of Agent! *I weird*). And . . . I don’t know any more than what anyone can read from the book description. As noted, I’ve not yet finished the second story yet.

Abigail Eaton is in New York with her three young children (6 year old Victoria, 3 year old Liam, and 8 year old Sadie. They are there to meet up with Eaton’s in-laws. The Eaton’s are, apparently, wealthy, and the kids stand to inherit some money. Especially as Frederick and Nicola are now dead (Nicola being Abigail’s partner, and Frederick being Nicola’s brother).

While hurrying to meet up with the in-laws in some restaurant, Abigail and family run into a bunch of people holding weapons and shooting them into a limo bus. Abigail, naturally, flees from the scene with her kids.

Riley Abbott, first introduced in the story as ‘Detective Riley Abbott’ despite the description calling her ‘Agent Riley Abbott’, is in the Bronx tracking . . . something. Involving computers. She’s a computer expert. As far as the guy whose Bronx precinct she is in, Captain Brock Howard, Abbott is a detective sent there, with Roberta Schumer, to tackle some kind of signal that got sent through a computer in Howard’s building. Sent there by the Police Commissioner, at least that’s what Howard thinks . . . was told . . whatever. In reality, though, Detective Riley Abbott is in fact Agent Riley Abbott, of the FBI. She’s working undercover as a detective in the NYPD police department.

During a visit with her FBI boss, Riley gets involved with the earlier mentioned shooting that is in the process of being investigated. Since she’s good with computers, she is asked to sit and move the camera around. The shooters all wore masks. The driver of the limo is gone. The riders of the limo are dead. The cameras do pick up, though, a woman with kids fleeing the scene. Riley’s tasked with tracking down that woman.

I rather dislike Abigail. Life in danger, what’s she do? Everything, it seems, that’s stupid so that her life and her children’s life’s are put into more danger. At least that’s the way things seemed. Bah I disliked her. I’m not sure if putting Dr. in front of her name saves her from TSTL (To Stupid To Live), but maybe. Let me be more exact. As an example – after being shot in the arm, she’s taken to a hotel. A cop is there to try to help. That ‘cop’ being Riley. Harsh pounding on the door. The cop tells Abigail to step back into the bedroom (which she just exited so she’s inches from there), the same bedroom that contains her kids. Abigail, just like earlier when the in-laws told her to leave the city, does the opposite of everything she’s told to do. She refuses to do the smart thing. Like take cover. Gun fire erupts. TSTL? Probably. Heheheheh. Crap. Stubbornly resisting all advice. Up to know she’s been weirdly strong (get shot in the arm? Pfft, whatever. For fuck sake, she didn’t even bother to check to see if her kids were okay). Then the cop tells her to take a breath and she screams hysterically (Abigail, that is), and can’t stop crying. WTF? What the hell kind of personality is being revealed here? Abigail really annoys me.

Shesh, everyone except for Riley, and possibly Riley’s boss Russell, are super emotional freaks of nature.

This short story started off well enough. And it kept my attention. But . . . I had problems with everything except, possibly, Riley. The plot/emotions/everything was over the top. The romance was quite odd on several levels. It was if I had accidentally missed an important scene or something several times. Two reasons - they went from 'I'm a cop protecting you' to 'we love each other' kind of in a single bound without much in the way of connecting text; there is a scene wherein Abigail was profusely apologizing to Riley - I had no inherent problem with that except for the part where I had no clue why she was apologizing. Maybe there was a scene that got left out of my copy of the book? Riley left to go do something, came back and . . . Abigail became stating things like how she needed to apologize. I was super confused.

Overall
I'm reminded of what I put in one of the paragraphs up with the first story - I've long experience with reading short stories hoping to find authors to pursue. Some authors are good at short, medium, and long stories. Some are not. So, just because I loved the first two stories in this book doesn't mean I'd love a full length book by either (though I hope I will); nor does it mean that the fact that I didn't particularly like the last short story in this collection that I'd never like anything by that author. So, I'll probably run across all three authors again.

It is unfortunate that I ended up with two stories near 5 stars each and ended with a story closer to 3 stars. Means I end up with an overall rating for the book of 4.2 stars.

March 29 2016