Schumacher, Aileen Books

Affirmative Reaction: A Tory Travers/David Alvarez Murder Mystery

Aileen Schumacher

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Engineer Tory Travers reluctantly worked with police detective David Alvarez in Engineered for Murder to determine who wanted to kill her so badly that either a bullet or a wrecking ball would suffice. Then, in Framework for Death, she helped Alvarez uncover the cause of a residential structural collapse concealing two bodies. Now Tory needs David's help again when she discovers a woman's body has been stuffed in a manhole while she's inspecting a community development site -- and she wants to help in order to speed things up: the city officials who contracted her company to inspect the storm sewers will undoubtedly hold up her check until after the case has been solved.

The body turns out to belong to a contentious city employee who vehemently opposed affirmative action programs. Years before, the Hispanic contractor who built the now-abandoned subdivision apparently committed suicide -- or was it really murder? Did the dead woman know something about it? Or maybe the past had nothing to do with it -- perhaps the recent return of her ex-husband was a plan for revenge; or perhaps her political views finally sent someone over the edge -- like the son of the dead contractor, who knows something, but doesn't want to reveal his information to Tory or David.

But David and Tory think the past had everything to do with the woman's demise, and find themselves unraveling deadly strings that go way back in time ...

Engineered for Murder: A Mystery (Tory Travers/David Alvarez Mysteries (Paperback))

Aileen Schumacher

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A Dazzling Debut Mystery 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Tory Travers is a no-nonsense head of a small New Mexico engineering firm, whose business and personal life are threatened by exposure when a quality control technician, freelancing as an investigative journalist informs her that he has uncovered a scandal in Tory's past. When the technician is murdered, Tory becomes the object of professional and personal interest of the equally no-nonsense Detective David Alvarez who finds himself puzzled, frequently irritated and ultimately captivated by the widowed Tory. The well-plotted tale has just enough technical information to give dimension to the story, yet not so much that we are overburdened with exposition. In fact, Schumacher handles this balance of exposition with sound plotting better than any of the recent writer-specialists. In Tory Travers, Schumacher has developed an intriguiging heroine whose often chaotic personal life is contrasted with an astute professional one. There is a problem-solving aspect to her profession that makes her an ideal amateur sleuth, and a curiosity that spills over into rashness that generates some interesting sparks in the relationship with Alvarez. The romantic antagonism between Travers and Alvarez sizzles in this highly entertaining, well-plotted, suspenseful first mystery. Very highly recommended.

Editorial Review:

Tory Travers is a young, widowed structural engineer, living with her son on the outskirts of a campus town in New Mexico. Her life changes when a scandal erupts regarding the structural problems of the new football stadium. Tory's business is financially threatened if she carries out her duties as inspector.

Things escalate when a person and lab records disappear and someone is found murdered. Enter Detective Alvarez, who discovers Tory's connection to the death. When Tory starts receiving death threats, the two work together to solve the mysteries.

Rosewood's Ashes: A Tory Travers/David Alvarez Mystery (Tory Travers/David Alvarez Mysteries)

Aileen Schumacher

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

On New Year's Day, 1923, Rosewood, Florida had its own school, a baseball field, a Masonic Hall, a train station, and three churches. In less than one week it was burned to the ground. Inspired by the true story of one town's destruction at the hands of hate and intolerance, ROSEWOOD'S ASHES is a driven mystery, as well as unique perspective on historical injustice.

Returning to Florida to visit her coma-stricken father, Tory Travers prepares herself for the demons of her past, the sordid reputation she'd suffered as a senator's daughter. Accompanying her for moral support is David Alvarez--devoted friend, infrequent lover, and detective with the El Paso Police Department.

But before the pair have a chance to confront Tory's troubled past, they are confronted with a more immediate tragedy in the vehicular manslaughter of a young woman they just met on the plane. A young woman who had told them about Rosewood and of the senator's involvement in research concerning the events that led to the town's destruction. Soon, another corpse turns up, a man well known to Tory, and Alvarez takes a personal interest in unearthing the truth about Rosewood, before Tory herself becomes a suspect--or a victim.

Framework for Death: A Mystery (Tory Travers/David Alvarez Mysteries)

Aileen Schumacher

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Excellent 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

1998 Anthony Nomination! This mystery is even better than the first one in this series. Ms. Schumacher has really out done herself on this one.

El Paso Detective David Alvarez, who we met in ENGINEERED FOR MURDER, is working on a murder case in which a second floor room falls on 2 people, killing them. Detective Alvarez calls in Tory Travers, whom we also met in the 1st book, to help him figure out what caused the collapse. Before you know it, they are up to their necks in trouble, with a killer, who needs answers and is willing to do anything to get them. This is one killer who will stop at nothing to get his questions answered, even if it means killing Ms. Travers infant son and the son of Alvarez's partner, as he has threatened to do. The ending is Superb.

I was so into this book, I couldn't put it down. I wanted to hurry and get all the answers myself! Thank you Ms. Schumacher for an excellent read.

Editorial Review:

Answers are few and far between when El Paso Police Detective David Alvarez is called to investigate an unexplained collapse in the residence of an affluent matron. The dead home owner and another unidentified body are discovered in the basement in what appears to be a concealed room. If this isn't enough to figure out--a live, unidentified infant is discovered upstairs.

When Alvarez calls in engineer Tory Travers to figure out what happened to cause the collapse, the media turns the case into a circus. Soon Alvarez is dealing with an alleged drug king, his DEA shadow, a mystery woman who unapologetically works outside the law, and Tory's inclination to go searching for solutions on her own. While Tory and her foreman look for the builder of the secret room, her son and the infant son of Alvarez's partner are threatened if they don't drop the case.

A Taste of Murder

Jo Grossman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Penzler Pick, March 2000: Okay, okay, it's not a mystery. It's a recipe book. But these are recipes from some of the best storytellers of our time, so you can expect a little more than a list of the 435 ingredients of a first-rate cassoulet and the 23 steps requiring an equal number of hours to produce it.

No, here we have the recipes for such culinary challenges as Kinsey Millhone's Peanut Butter and Pickle sandwich, with secrets that include informing the would-be Paul Prudhomme that the peanut butter should be spread on a slice of bread, covered with sliced pickles, and then (and this could be the key to it all) covered with a second slice of bread. Whew! If you're not exhausted yet, there is also Susan Silverman's recipe from Robert B. Parker, who declined to provide anything more ambitious because a Spenser cookbook is in the works. (Note: It has been in the works for 15 years.) The recipe is for boiling water.

But there really are some superb recipes from a talented corps of writers who know how to cook, and there are delicious anecdotes, some sound advice on where and when to eat what you've just learned how to cook, and even recipes for foods you've never heard of (like Liza Cody's Bacon Buttie, the perfect tidbit that provides the thrill of risking a coronary).

Among the contributors are Lilian Jackson Braun, Donald E. Westlake, Anne Perry, Tony Hillerman, Carol O'Connell, Parnell Hall and, of course, Anthony Bourdain, whose hilarious culinary mysteries are a sidelight to his real life as a master chef. --Otto Penzler