Amazon Sylvia Dickey Smith Sylvia Dickey Smith Category:  Mystery/Suspense Publisher: L & L Dreamspell ISBN-10:  1603180060 Type: Fiction Pages: 254 Copyright: June 1, 2004 ISBN-13: 9781603180061 Fifty-year-old Sid Smart doesn’t know she is an anomaly until after she leaves her role as ‘preacher’s wife’ and inherits a detective agency and, beneath layers of conformity by guilt, discovers a passion of her own. Justice. What had Warren been drinking—to leave her this private eye business? She’d made it clear to him years ago—no way, Jose! She reached in her pocket and pulled out the keychain his lawyer, slash, executor, had given her the day he’d read her the will. After several false attempts, she found the right key and unlocked the door. It creaked open. Stale, moldy air accosted her before she crossed the threshold. She ran her hand across the wall, flipped the light switch, and spied a can of air freshener on a desk. Grabbing it, she sprayed, shook the can a couple of times then dropped it in the trash basket. A clay pot with a few brown sprigs of mint sat in the front window. She rummaged in her bag, pulled out a partial bottle of Evian and dumped the water into the flower pot. A sudden whiff of mint rose from the almost indestructible herb. At least something of Warren’s still lived. More like an intruder than the new owner, she explored the office tentatively, fearful the place might break if she touched the wrong thing. Or land her in Oz. One thing for sure, she certainly wasn’t going back to Kansas. Some Baptist preacher’s wives might spend their whole lives totally happy, following along in the tight, narrow shadow of their husbands, but she wasn’t one of them. She’d spent thirty years in the deep, deadening rut of being the perfect, submissive, unambiguous preacher’s wife. Thirty years being pulled, stretched, molded like Play-Dough. Excerpt “Orange! Bayou country! Where a gator can bite a man’s leg off before he can paddle his pirogue out of Adams Bayou. That is, if the mosquitoes don’t eat him first.” He chortled, running his hand through his gray hair. “I tell my bride, when God wants to give the earth an enema, this is where he inserts the enema tube.” His belly shook as he laughed at his own joke. “Now don’t get me wrong. I like Orange. You just have to catch the flavor of the place, and then it grows on you. That and mildew.” He laughed again. “You’re not from these parts are you?”

Earl Staggs
Dance on His Grave
By Sylvia Dickey Smith

Published by: L&L Dreamspell
ISBN: 978-1-60318-006-1

Reviewed by Earl Staggs


Sidra “Sid” Smart bursts out of a tightly-wrapped cocoon when she divorces the man she married at the age of seventeen. After more than thirty years as the wife of a controlling Baptist preacher and being told what to do and think, how to dress and when to smile, she is determined to find out what kind of person she might have been.

First, however, she must travel from Houston to the east Texas town of Orange and dispose of the private investigation business willed to her by her brother, who was recently killed in a car accident.

When Sid visits her brother’s deserted office to plan how to get rid of it, a distraught young woman shows up. Jewell Stone has recurring nightmares and flashes of memory from thirty years ago when she was a child. She and her sister saw a woman being tortured and killed. The murderer also physically and sexually abused Jewell’s sister. The man was their father, Roy Manly, and both sisters live in mortal fear he will find them and silence them, even after all this time. Jewell hired Sid’s brother to find proof of his guilt and have him tried and convicted so she and her sister could live without fear of him and their terrifying nightmares would end.

Sid explains that her brother is dead and refers Jewell to another PI in the area. She may not be sure what she wants to do with the rest of her reclaimed life, but she is certain it will not be running a PI business, something she knows nothing about. The other PI, George Leger, a colorful bear of a man who speaks with a thick Cajun accent when it suits him, not only refuses to take over Jewell’s case, but convinces Sid to give the business a try under his tutelage.

Before long, Sid is balancing her desire to break away from the shackles of her previous life with a determination to see long overdue justice done. In search of evidence against Roy Manly, she travels not only across Texas and to the island of Trinidad, but into the depths of an alligator-ridden swamp in search of a Cajun psychic. The search becomes more complicated when there are attempts on her life, and she uncovers evidence of other crimes involving someone in her ex-husband’s parsonage. Even the supposed accidental death of her brother becomes suspicious.

Sid is aided by an intriguing cast of characters including the local Police Chief who salivates at the thought of solving a thirty-year-old murder. Sid is also joined by her wacky Aunt Annie, who arrives wearing a raspberry beret, a bright green pantsuit and gaudy costume jewelry with a large metallic-gold purse slung over one shoulder and a huge tabby cat named Chesterfield over the other.

The local DA is also highly interested, not only in the old murder, but in Sid personally. The attraction between them frightens Sid with feelings she doesn’t want. She is convinced all men want to control women, and she has to remind herself she can never let that happen to her again.

Author Sylvia Dickey Smith has skillfully woven a story of a woman driven to begin a new life on her own with a chilling tale of mystery and suspense. You’ll find yourself drawn to Sid Smart and cheering for her to succeed against past and present obstacles all the way to the knuckle-whitening climax. You’ll also find yourself, like me, wanting to see more of Sid in future novels.