Jodé Susan Millman

The Midnight Call is the debut novel from Jodé Millman, first in the Queen City Crimes/Jessie Martin series. Although it won a couple of awards in 2020 when it was published, I personally found it to be a little lacking.

Jessica "Jessie" Martin, a lawyer in the Hudson Valley, receives a midnight call from her friend and mentor, Terrence Butterfield, after he murders a teenager in his basement. Rushing to his side, she becomes entangled in his case in unexpected ways, having almost deadly repurcussions. Has Terrence always been a cold-blooded killer? Did he have some kind of mental break? It will take some legal finesse to get Terrence aquitted of this heinous crime.

Jessie is a relatively likeable character -- engaged, pregnant, smart, and loyal. However, she continuously makes bad choices, pushing her life to implode right in front of her. Kyle, her fiancee, seems to be a good guy, trying to do right by Jessie and their baby, but it backfires on him. Hal, the prosecuting attorney, is too obsessed with Jessie to see things clearly, and he also makes questionable choices. Jeremy Kaplan, Terrence's attorney, is a wiley guy, trying to get back on top in the legal world, doing everything he can to get his client off, even trying to sabotage someone else's livelihood. And Terrence himself...one minute he's a coherent, logical, well-spoken man, the next he's rambling and having physical outbursts. What's happened to him? Is he for real, or faking to get out of prison?

The writing for me left a lot to be desired. There were sentence fragments everywhere, which drove me crazy. I would have to re-read the sentence before it so that the two sentences flowed together like they should have. From the beginning, we knew who did it, but where is the "why"? I expected some kind of twist that never came, and the ending left something to be desired. The going was slow throughout, and I feel like it could have been shortened by at least 50 pages.

All in all, a decent debut novel from this author. There are two more in the series, and although I haven't read them, if you enjoy this one, then you'll probably enjoy the rest of them. Although I wasn't a huge fan of this book, there are definitely readers who will like it. There's family, legal thriller, suspense, relationships...and a trigger warning for pregnancy issues.… (mere)

Disclosure: I won a copy of this book in a LibraryThing giveaway. I very much enjoyed this book as another recent new foray into crime novels. The characters were realistic, everything seemed plausible (not to mention it felt very fresh), and it kept me guessing. I'd highly recommend this. Only reason I'm giving it 4 out of 5 stars as there seemed to be multiple denouement moments that didn't seem germane to the actual plot; I basically didn't understand why they were there. Aside from that, however, I enjoyed the hunt of the story and will look for other books by this author.… (mere)

Jodé Millman’s Queen City Crimes Mystery series is set in Poughkeepsie, NY, the Queen City of the Hudson River Valley. The series uses local true crime stories as a framework to explore the complicated relationship that has evolved between two childhood friends. The friendship of police detective Ebony Jones and criminal defense attorney Jessie Martin is threatened when their professional lives place them on opposite sides of the law. In The Empty Kayak, the third book in the series, Ebony and Jessie are brought back together when Ebony discovers that the person missing in the Hudson River is Jessie’s ex-boyfriend Kyle Emory and the father of her daughter Lillie. During the investigation, the conflict between Jessie and Ebony intensifies when they decide to withhold crucial information from each other rather than work together to solve the case. Throughout the book, Ebony and Jessie struggle to reestablish their friendship, maintain their professional boundaries, and deal with everyday challenges at work and at home while trying to find out what happened to Kyle and bring closure to his family and friends.

As a police procedural, the book is well-researched, well-written, and filled with details about the investigation: analysis of the crime scene, questioning of likely suspects, interviews of expert witnesses, examination of possible financial motives, and discussion of the influence of social media. By casting Kyle as the missing person in her rendition of a true crime straight from the depths of the Hudson River, Millman quickly embeds the case into the series narrative she has developed about Ebony and Jessie. Millman strategically expands the cast of characters beyond those involved in the true crime to introduce alternative scenarios and deepen the mystery surrounding Kyle’s disappearance. With the help of modern technology, Millman devises an ingenious plot twist that would have been welcomed by those who investigated the true crime. Millman has successfully transformed a true crime story into a modern-day mystery while helping her characters move forward with their lives until the next installment of the Queen City Crimes Mystery series.… (mere)