Velma Gone Awry (Brooklyn 8 Ballo Mystery) by Matt Cost-a review

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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date April 12,2023

8 Ballo’s mother was certain he was going to be born a girl, but when he comes out a boy, she writes down simply the number 8, as he has seven older siblings. She meant to change it to a real name at some point but never got around to it.

Now, in his mid-thirties, 8 is a college educated man, a veteran of the Great War, jilted in love, and has his own private investigator business. He enjoys his friends, a good book, jazz music, and a very simple life. When he is hired to find the young flapper daughter of a German businessman, life suddenly becomes much more complicated.

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REVIEW: VELMA GONE AWRY is the first instalment in Matt Cost’s historical, adult BROOKLYN 8 BALLO noir mystery, crime series set in the roaring 20s, focusing on Brooklyn PI 8 Ballo.

Told from limited omniscient third person perspective VELMA GONE AWRY focuses on the search for twenty-something heiress and ‘flapper’ Velma Hartmann. Velma has gone missing, and her well-connected father is desperate for her return so Fritz Hartmann hires private investigator 8 Ballo to find and return his wayward girl but from the outset 8 Ballo finds himself facing down gangsters and mobsters during the Prohibition era of the roaring 20s, mobsters that are also looking for the same woman as our story line hero.

VELMA GONE AWRY is a ‘noir’ detective novel set in the 1920s during the American Prohibition era where speakeasies and jazz clubs are all the rage, hiding the criminal activity of gangsters and mobsters behind music and illegal booze. Matt Cost pulls the reader into a who’s who of the early twentieth century famous and infamous: Arnold Rothstein, Bugsy Siegal and Myer Lansky, Dorothy Parker, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Jay Gatsby, Al Jolson, George Gershwin and baseball great Babe Ruth. We are up close and personal with movie stars, singers, writers and poets, professional sports stars, as well as famous landmarks and speakeasies, and the big names in organized crime including several members of The Five Points Gang. The racism and discrimination of the 1920s is front and center as a world at war creates a war on the streets between anyone and everyone deemed not of their kind.

There is a large ensemble cast of colorful and ‘familiar’ secondary and supporting characters many of whom have been written about, and starred in our history books and theater. We are introduced to 8 Ballo’s best friend, African American businessman Pearle Hill.

VELMA GONE AWRY is a fast paced, action packed story of secrets and lies, power and control, murder and mayhem, crime and punishment. The character driven premise is twisted and dramatic; the characters are edgy and passionate.

Copy supplied for review

Reviewed by Sandy

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Over the years, Cost has owned a video store, a mystery bookstore, and a gym. He has also taught history and coached just about every sport imaginable.

Cost now lives in Brunswick, Maine, with his wife, Harper. There are four grown children: Brittany, Pearson, Miranda, and Ryan. A chocolate Lab and a basset hound round out the mix. He now spends his days at the computer, writing.