I do not keep all the books I receive for review, this is one I will not soon give away.

* * * * * STARS

Lady Justice Takes a C R A P: City Retiree Action Patrol, A Walt Williams Novel opens in the first person, not always an easy method for writing or reading. In this case, it has proven to be excellent. Walt Williams ruminates a bit about his life, his thoughts on justice and his retirement. Living in Kansas City, Missouri, Walt faced retirement a bit askew of the norm. He was not content to sit and rock, watch grass grow or otherwise meditate. Walt’s goal was to give Lady Justice a hand. Thus a new career is born, a book is launched and a whole array of characters come to life under the pen of this skilled writer. We meet Walt and his cohorts. There is his new partner in the Police Department where Walt calls upon old friendship with Captain Dwayne Short to help him launch a career as – a cop. Initially Walt is a more or less glorified, albeit, gun toting reserve officer partnered with Ox, George Wilson, a long time patrol officer weighing in at some 220 pounds. Back on the home front are Maggie, Walt’s longtime love, Willie who shares the apartment building owned by Walt. The oldtime huckster is now Walt’s handyman who keeps both the apartment building, and the remodeled hotel also owned by Walt, in working order. Apartment manage over in the hold hotel is Mary, 75 years old and never far from her trusty bat, just in case. Rounding out the circle of compadres is octogenarian Professor Leopold Skinner master of the one liner. Before long Walt and Ox become a bonafide Dynamic Duo relying heavily on experience Ox has gained during his tenure in police work coupled to the experience Walt has accrued by simply living to his mid sixties. Between the pair one knotty police problem after another evaporate to the delight of many and the chagrin of one grumpy officer who just doesn’t thing there is room for old guys on the force. I do not keep all the books I receive for review, this is one I will not soon give away. I thoroughly enjoyed writer Thornhill’s humor, expertise with words and wit. Settings are believable, characters are people with whom we can identify, we have all known a skinny high school geek or two, and a con man now and then. We have met and been charmed by gals such as realtor Maggie McBride, and have hoped to know a Police Office like Ox when we need help. Mary, while she outweighs both of my own not your average old lady aunties is representative of that generation of women who met the world and dared it to blink. In her 90s my auntie Poll donned her levis to go up on the roof of the church and get repair work done because the 60 year old preacher was –too old to do that kind of work. I like Mary, all 220 pounds and flowery muumuus of her. Thornhill adds enough police procedure to keep the story moving, enough romance to keep interest high, enough action to keep readers turning the page and enough out of the ordinary to create a book that is highly readable and is not the least bit ordinary.