Emboozlement (McCall & Company, Book 3) – a Review

In just ten weeks, Kate McCall has used her acting expertise, her theatrical flair, and her dramatic savvy (her words) to solve not just one or two, but many cases. It all started when her father was found dead, tied to a chair with his eyes blown out. He left Kate his private detective business. Even though being a detective was the last thing she wanted, she turned out to be a rather good one. Never does she have the time to get bored. I’m wondering how she has time to sleep.

She is hired to solve a simple embezzlement case by former Major League pitcher Steve “Blue” Stark. Someone is embezzling money from his West Side sports bar. But like all her cases have a habit of doing, what starts out as simple does not stay that way for long.

And the man who killed her father is apparently still in business. This time he is killing high-priced divorce lawyers at Lowry Lowe, where the lawyers, two married couples, are anything but faithful in their own marriages. This time, he is communicating with Kate and baiting her by letting her know when the next murder will be. Kate can’t resist going after him, even though she has been told to stay home, stay put, and stay out of police business. Why won’t she do what she had been told? Because more than anything else, Kate wants to catch the man who murdered her father.

Kate normally doesn’t do too well in the boyfriend department, but she falls for someone again. Not just anyone, but a client. Will she fare better this time? Or is she just setting herself up for heartbreak and disappointment again?

There are two fantastic mysteries in this one book. Who is killing the Lowry Lowe lawyers? Who is embezzling money from the sports bar?

I love mysteries and I love trying to figure out who the guilty party is. I still don’t have a clue who was killing the lawyers or who killed Kate’s dad. I came a bit closer to figuring out who the embezzler was even though red herrings were being thrown at me from every direction, so many that I wasn’t sure how correct any of my guesses at the identity of the embezzler were.

This is book 3 in the three-book McCall & Company series. That makes me sad. Kate still hasn’t caught her father’s killer, and at the end of this book, another case is presented to her. Reading how she and the others at the House of Emotional Tics solve cases is amusing, hilarious, and satisfying. If Kate McCall doesn’t solve more mysteries, the world of books (and me) will be left longing for her return. (Update: I’ve been informed that more McCall & Company books are on their way.)

I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. If you would like a copy of your own, I’ve provided an Amazon link below.

Amazon Link: Emboozlement

Recommended Articles:
Workman’s Complication (McCall & Company, Book 1) – a Review
Swollen Identity (McCall & Company, Book 2) – a Review

Favorite Sentences:
Wanda was a worldwide weatherwoman with taste and style, and death didn’t slow her down one whit.

He was the most singular human being in the city of New York, the quirkiest of the quirky, the oddest of the odd, the deadliest of the deadly.

It was an idea way outside the box, so far away from the box, in fact, that I couldn’t see the box, couldn’t recall the box in the first place.

Estimating Connecticut horse country acreage in the middle of the night turned out to be something I sucked at.

Fu had his earbuds in and was listening to Italian opera at decibels generally associated with jet engines and KISS concerts.

New Words Learned:
apropos – fitting

bravura – great technical skill and brilliance shown in a performance or activity

buffleheads – small North American ducks

fiduciary – a person to whom property or power is entrusted for the benefit of another

foosball – a game, often played in bars, in which opponents on either side of a purpose-built table attempt to strike a ball into the other side’s goal by moving horizontal bars to which miniatures of footballers are attached

gadwalls – grayish-brown wild ducks found in temperate parts of the Northern Hemisphere.

hamartia – a fatal flaw leading to the downfall of a tragic hero or heroine

hyperthymesia syndrome – a condition in which an individual possesses a superior autobiographical memory, meaning he or she can recall the vast majority of personal experiences and events in his or her life

jones – a fixation on or compulsive desire for someone or something

juco – junior college

mergansers – fish-eating diving ducks that have a narrow bill hooked at the tip and serrated at the edges

paitan – a thick, cloudy soup

proscenium – the part of a theater stage in front of the curtain

shifu – a skillful person or a master

About the Author:
Rich Leder has been a working writer for more than two decades. His screen credits include 18 produced television films for CBS, Lifetime, and Hallmark, feature films for Paramount Pictures, Tri-Star Pictures, and Left Bank Films, and four novels for Laugh Riot Press.

He has been the lead singer in a Detroit rock band, a restaurateur, a Little League coach, an indie film director, a literacy tutor, a magazine editor, a screenwriting coach, a PTA board member, a commercial real estate agent, and a visiting artist for the University of North Carolina Wilmington Film Studies Department, among other things, all of which, it turns out, was grist for the mill. He resides on the North Carolina coast with his awesome wife, Lulu, and is sustained by the visits home of their three children.