Rating: 
Summary: Justice, Texas Style.....
Review: Meet Poppy Rice, former Florida prosecutor and Bronx district attorney turned cracker-jack FBI Agent. She was brought to Washington to clean up and revamp the infamous FBI crime lab. With her take-no-prisoners style, she's turned the once sloppy and sometimes inept facility into a state of the art, well-oiled machine, the envy of the rest of the world. Now she's carved out a new role for herself, reinvestigating old cases, the ones that may have fallen through the cracks in the bad old days of slipshod investigations, and that's how she comes across Rona Leigh Glueck. Rona Leigh, former teenage ax murderer, now born again Christian, is sentenced to die by lethal injection in just ten days. She was a seventeen year old alcoholic, drug addicted, malnourished and only eighty-eight pounds at the time of the murders. With her tiny frame and childlike wrists and hands, Poppy doesn't believe she could have wielded a twenty-four pound ax at least a dozen times. Her trial was one big emotional travesty, topped off with very suspect expert testimony, "glee" made her able to do it. But what really sends Poppy to Texas looking for justice is the fact that the FBI crime lab ignored a request from Rona Leigh's public defender. Poppy feels if they had done their job, it just might have proven that Rona Leigh was innocent..... Based loosely on the Karla Faye Tucker case and execution, Mary-Ann Tirone Smith has written a fresh and entertaining thriller you won't be able to put down. This is an intriguing novel that has it all...a terrific and intricate story line complete with twists, turns, and more than a few surprises that keeps you off balance and turning pages, crisp, smart writing full of witty and irreverent dialogue and Texas humor, and vivid, riveting, sometimes laugh-out-loud-funny scenes. But it's Ms Smith's well drawn, engaging and original characters that really make this book stand out, and once you've met tough, clever and very capable Poppy Rice, you'll be hooked for sure. This is a book you don't want to miss. Love Her Madly is the first of what should be a marvelous new series, and should definitely be at the top of every mystery/thriller fan's "must read" list.
Rating:
Summary: The start of a great new series
Review: She is a sassy, fresh and feisty independent thinker who goes her own way in the tightly structured organization of the FBI because she's quick to get the job done. After reorganizing a whole department in the FBI, the upcoming execution of Rona Leigh Gloeck catches Poppy Rice's interest. She digs up the case file and sees that the woman might not have gotten a proper trial. Poppy wants to investigate because it is only ten days until the execution and her supervisor gives her permission.
She flies to Texas and starts asking questions about people who were involved with the case and quickly comes to the conclusion that Rona Leigh was railroaded. All legal and political avenues that could grant the condemned woman a stay of thirty days disappear and Poppy witnesses the state-sponsored death of Rona Leigh. The lethal injection fails to kill the prisoner and she is taken by ambulance to the hospital, but the patient disappears into thin air. Now Poppy must discover who the conspirators are who took the prisoner away while seeing that justice is served this time.
LOVE HER MADLY is a police procedural that actually has moments when it turns into a humorously dark macabre tale. The heroine is a breath of fresh air taking herself seriously enough to get the job done without it killing her spirit. This is the first book in what looks to be an innovative series and this reviewer can't wait for BIG GIRLS DON'T CRY to be published. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: The start of a great new series
Review: She is a sassy, fresh and feisty independent thinker who goes her own way in the tightly structured organization of the FBI because she's quick to get the job done. After reorganizing a whole department in the FBI, the upcoming execution of Rona Leigh Gloeck catches Poppy Rice's interest. She digs up the case file and sees that the woman might not have gotten a proper trial. Poppy wants to investigate because it is only ten days until the execution and her supervisor gives her permission.
She flies to Texas and starts asking questions about people who were involved with the case and quickly comes to the conclusion that Rona Leigh was railroaded. All legal and political avenues that could grant the condemned woman a stay of thirty days disappear and Poppy witnesses the state-sponsored death of Rona Leigh. The lethal injection fails to kill the prisoner and she is taken by ambulance to the hospital, but the patient disappears into thin air. Now Poppy must discover who the conspirators are who took the prisoner away while seeing that justice is served this time.
LOVE HER MADLY is a police procedural that actually has moments when it turns into a humorously dark macabre tale. The heroine is a breath of fresh air taking herself seriously enough to get the job done without it killing her spirit. This is the first book in what looks to be an innovative series and this reviewer can't wait for BIG GIRLS DON'T CRY to be published. Harriet Klausner
Rating: 
Summary: This Poppy's not addictive
Review: This is the first in a new series about an FBI special agent named Poppy. Poppy's a feminazi. Tirone Smith's style is a little too explicit and contains way too much nastiness as she tries to develop Poppy's cynical nature. I like Sara Paretsky's V. I. Warshawski books; this woman tries much too hard to emulate her. The plot's OK, action's good, it's worth a read, but don't expect too much, unless you're a romance reader trying to make the transition to something with a little more meat and less flesh in it.
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