PHOENIX BURNING (A Veranda Cruz Mystery #2) by Isabella Maldonado-a review and guest post

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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date March 8, 2018

The battle between Veranda Cruz and the Villalobos cartel turns Phoenix into a war zone.

Homicide Detective Veranda Cruz will stop at nothing to take down the Villalobos cartel. But when a wave of violence in the city escalates, she fears that the secrets of her past will take her down instead.

Adolfo Villalobos is a crime boss who’s determined to stake his claim. To prove that he’s ready to run his family’s sprawling criminal empire, he devises a plan to silence his siblings and destroy Veranda, leaving a trail of destruction through downtown Phoenix that makes national headlines. Veranda believes the task force she’s been assigned to lead will end the cartel’s reign of terror, until Adolfo’s revenge takes a cruel–and highly personal–twist.

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REVIEW:  PHOENIX BURNING is the second instalment in Isabella Maldonado’s contemporary, adult VERANDA CRUZ MYSTERY crime thriller series focusing on Phoenix homicide detective Veranda Cruz. PHOENIX BURNING can be read as a stand alone without any difficulty but I recommend reading the series in order as there is a continuing premise throughout.

Told from several third person points of view including Veranda Cruz, PHOENIX BURNING follows Phoenix homicide detective Veranda Cruz as she and her fellow police detectives continue to struggle in the wake of a notorious Mexican Cartel headed by Hector Villalobos and his adult children (Adolfo, Bartolo, Carlos & Daria) whose illegal activities including arms dealing, drugs and human trafficking are wreaking havoc in the Phoenix area.

In the first instalment BLOOD’S ECHO Veranda’s fifteen year old sister Gabriela was kidnapped by the Villalobos family, and her mother’s restaurant burned to the ground in a violent act of retribution and revenge against our story line heroine. Fast forward six weeks, and Veranda is named to a special task force alongside the Phoenix Police Department Homicide Squad and Gang Unit, the FBI, DEA, US Marshal, Homeland Security and the Mexican Federal Police as they put a plan into motion to take down the Villalobos Cartel. What ensues is a series of set backs, and threats aimed at our story line heroine as Hector Villalobos tries establish his power and authority against everyone involved.

PHOENIX BURNING contains some scenes of violence that focus on the brutality of the Mexican cartels; their cruelty and destructiveness as it pertains to human life, and their single-minded ruthlessness of domination and control. The Phoenix Police are outsmarted; our heroine’s family and the people of Phoenix are blindsided; the Villalobos family structure and dynamic will continue to change.

Author Isabella Maldonado, a retired police captain, and graduate of the FBI National Academy, draws on her experiences and real life in her endeavor to create a fictionalized world of corruption, crime and violence in Phoenix, Arizona. PHOENIX BURNING is an intriguing thrill ride; a gripping and realistic tale of choices and tragic consequences; of retaliation and retribution; entitlement, family, dominion and power.

:Copy supplied by Netgalley for review

Reviewed by Sandy

TOEING THE THIN BLUE LINE by Isabella Maldonado

Police officers are afforded a lot of discretion in how they perform their duties. This is both necessary, and a potential pitfall. After more than twenty years on the force, I’ve made my share of judgment calls during rapidly evolving situations. When I became a police captain later in my career, I had to hold others accountable for their decisions. It’s not something most cops like to discuss, but it’s a very real part of the job. There are times when you’re put in the position of knowing a guilty person has escaped justice based on a technicality. You must let them go. We used to have a saying on the force: “The world is round.” It means that the person who gets away with a crime today will doubtless come full circle and end up getting caught for something else tomorrow. Kind of “bad guy karma.”

In fiction, whether on the screen or in print, heroes are sometimes portrayed as vigilantes who ensure justice is served. This is one of the reasons why fiction can be so much more satisfying than real life, where sometimes evil seems to prevail. This begs the question: Should good guys do bad things in the name of fighting crime? We know what Machiavelli would say, but then again, he didn’t swear an oath to serve and protect. In real life, the answer is not just no, but hell no.

Having sat on both sides of the commander’s desk, I could deeply sympathize with an officer who colored outside the lines in an honest effort to lock up a criminal. But I couldn’t allow it. I disciplined those officers when they violated policy or procedure. During the review process, I always explained to the officer that the police are held to a higher standard. The fact that we are empowered to take away people’s freedom – and yes, sometimes their very lives – means that we cannot ever allow ourselves to cut corners or skip ahead, even if that means getting to the end point more quickly. My officers knew me to be firm, but fair.

In fiction, however, it’s just so much more fun to make sure evil gets its comeuppance. Preferably in a spectacular and wholly satisfying way. If that requires our hero to bend or break a few pesky rules, then so be it. I write a police procedural series featuring the Phoenix Police Department. My protagonist, Detective Veranda Cruz, strays from the line, but she ends up paying the price for doing so. It’s important to me to show the repercussions cops face when they use deadly force, whether subsequently deemed justifiable or not. Aside from those kind of judgment calls, officers routinely make many other decisions when they investigate cases that can have long-reaching ramifications for suspects, victims, and the entire community. Using my background, I try to portray as accurately as I can what happens to police who do the wrong things for the right reasons, but not to the point of bogging down the story with endless Internal Affairs interviews. Fast-paced stories need to keep their momentum, after all. Hopefully, readers enjoy an engaging story that keeps them on the edge of their seat. If my characters sometimes resort to extreme measures to get the job done, there will be a price to pay. But, after all, that’s what makes them the good guys!

Isabella Maldonado is a published author, a retired police captain, and a regular contributor on television News Channel 12 (Phoenix NBC affiliate) as a law enforcement expert. Her last police position was Commander of Special Investigations and Forensics. During her long career, she served as a hostage negotiator, department spokesperson, and precinct commander among many assignments. She was recognized with a Meritorious Service Award and a Lifesaving Award, and was selected to attend executive management training at the FBI National Academy in Quantico. Maldonado is a past president of the Phoenix Metro chapter of Sisters In Crime, and currently sits on the board. She lives in Mesa, Arizona, where she is currently writing the third book in the Veranda Cruz series, which features a Latina Phoenix police detective.

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