A Deadly Hand Wins a Full House Rating

When I was a young child, my family played cards. We played all types of games, especially in the summer when we could relax. Card-playing was a fun family get-together on both sides of my family. My mom's family liked Rummy and Seven-Up. My dad's family always played Spite and Malice. So, it was natural that I learned to play Poker at an early age. The game is easy to understand but not that easy to win. Being able to bluff and not give away the cards being held are important.

Carol Costa knows how to bluff. Her book, A Deadly Hand, surprises the reader at the end. The killer turned out to be someone I never expected, but Costa left the clues early in the game. She also managed to link all the murders together, but I thought the connection was a little forced. I think it would have made more sense to have one of the murders linked to the other killer, which turned out to be a subplot. Here is where she was able to bluff the readers. Costa spent considerable time on the murder of a prominent politician's wife that the reader assumes that was the main plot and that murder had to be linked to one of a reporter.

That turned out to be a false lead. The pair of murders was not connected and was a coincidence. I think they should have been, though. Connecting them would have made more sense and would not have been as jarring to the reader. When I read the ending, I had to reread it because I wasn't sure it was right.

A Deadly Hand's main character Dana Sloan is an investigative reporter, but she acts more like a private investigator than a reporter. She is dating a homicide detective, Al Bruno, but the police officer doesn't get much air time in the book. When he does show up in the book, it's to fight with Dana. She also seems to have more chemistry with her editor, Sam McGowan, but he's married. I actually liked the Bruno character and thought Dana was being cruel to him unnecessarily. I also think Bruno could have helped a little bit more. In other crime novels, the investigator always gets help from friends, especially the police friends.