‘Life Blood’By Penny Rudolph

Published by Poisoned Pen Press. September 2007

ISBN: 978-1-59058-346-3

Rachel Chavez, the protagonist in this new novel by Penny Rudolph, is unusual in at least one respect:  she runs a parking garage she has inherited from her grandfather in downtown LA, one that does not cater to the public but leases space to nearby businesses.  One night she finds a locked van in the garage , inside of which are two young Mexican boys, both unconscious.  When Rachel drives them to the emergency room of a local hospital, she is told that one of the boys is dead and the other severely dehydrated.  When she returns the next day to see how the boy is, she is told there is no record of either boy ever having been there.

Rachel is not the kind of woman to let this rest, and is determined to find out how the boys, or their records, could have simply disappeared.  She wonders if their being Mexican enters into the equation.

Her personal life is in problematical shape, with her ambivalence toward the man to whom she has recently become engaged [being engaged isn’t the problem, but getting married is], trying to get information from her less-than-forthcoming father about her Mexican heritage, and the prospect of losing a major tenant at the garage.  The latter problem is unexpectedly solved when the same local hospital signs a contract to lease over one hundred spaces for its employees as well as use of the helipad located on the roof, in what is seemingly coincidental timing.

The characters in the book are all too human – Rachel is a recovering alcoholic, her father a habitual gambler, with all the attendant problems to which that addiction gives rise.  Rachel’s friends are also very interesting creations: one is a street person, an elderly woman who for some reason has a cell phone, the other the head of a cleaning service who knows—or can find out-- much of what there is to know in the neighborhood.  The author has given us a believable, well-plotted mystery peopled with fascinating characters, including a couple of red herrings.  Suspenseful and thoroughly enjoyable, the book is recommended.

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Gloria Feit

This is apparently Jean Rowden’s first book.