Review by Sara Young
“She couldn’t resist eating the whole bag. She ate until she turned red, orange and green.”

ANGELINE JELLYBEAN [available soon from 4RV Publishing] is a delightful children’s book. Crystalee Calderwood’s words and Stephen Macquignon’s art brilliantly compliment each other and bring Angeline off the page. Bold colors weave throughout the story, knitting common threads together.

Angeline only wants to eat jellybeans. Green, orange, yellow, red; she’s not choosy. Everywhere she turns, she’s urged to pick other colorful things that are healthy for her. “Blah!” In addition to addressing colors, food and nutrition, this book is bound to greatly expand young vocabularies. How many words in the English language rhyme with “jellybean”, anyway?

Fun to read, captivating to look at, this ought to be a hit for the old-enough-to-focus to proud-to-sound-it-out crowds.

 Review by Sara Young

Who is really behind the anonymous screen name we contact so frequently, sometimes connect with so well? Vivian Gilbert Zabel presents one chilling scenario in her mystery/suspense novel, MIDNIGHT HOURS. [Available from 4RV Publishing, © 2008 ISBN 9780979751332]

Wheelchair-bound homicide detective Martin Rogers finds himself right in the middle of an investigation. It’s looking more and more like his new on-line companion, Midnight, is linked to a string of dead men. They have something besides Midnight in common, too: They were all disabled. Now Martin and his dedicated team of friends and colleagues must track Midnight down before Martin winds up at the end of that list. Along the way, Midnight takes Martin, Assistant District Attorney Lisa Harris, detectives Kyle Stone and Frank Thomas on a wild chase of dead-end leads and dizzying turns.

Though Midnight commits multiple murders, the atrocity is handled delicately. Two of the characters share a love interest. Sexual tension occurs, but they do not wander beyond chaste kissing. Some mild profanity is used within the confines of character context, but it is sporadic. The absence of graphic violence, gore, sexual content, strong adult language or overtones makes this easy read suitable for anyone between the ages of ten and one hundred who likes to think around the corners of the mystery genre.

Midnight Hours

A Review by J. R. Robinson

"Her sight blurred. Where am I? Oh, dear God, help me. Her thoughts, scrambled and confused, kept beating in her head. Am I dead? Maybe I am. Sound vibrated in her ears: the thump of her heart, the rasp of her breath, the crashing behind her. Another root reached out and tripped her. She fell in a heap; her ankle screamed in pain. She gagged with pain but forced herself up again, her mind locked on one goal: to survive."

Looking for a good mystery novel you can safely give that impressionable teenaged daughter, granddaughter or niece? Thanks to Vivian Gilbert Zabel, here’s one: Midnight Hours.

Yes, it has murders, and lots of them. But the crimes are more referenced than they are described, and rather than gore, they are wrapped in a Gordian knot of cyberspace mystery regarding both the killer’s name and gender. She is voluptuous, alluring and manipulative; but he is also clever, skilled and ruthless. She is dead or still alive, and he may be long gone or hiding in plain view. Today’s youth should readily relate to the disembodied and surreal world of computers with which the majority of this mystery is concerned.

Yes, it has cops galore: Martin Rogers, Frank Thomas, Kyle Stone, A.D.A. Lisa Harris, Officer Denise Woods, Captain Jack Young, Deputy L. D. Norris, and Detective Mike Connors to name but a few. But there’s not a hard-nose in the lot. Martin, the central character, is a handicapped Detective Lieutenant living next door to his parents on whom he depends and lavishes respect. He is not an anti-hero. Neither is he an egotistical mental giant, for he limps through the investigative details of the case and ends with only a vague suspicion he has been, once again, outsmarted.

Yes, it has a love story; but it is passionless and a mere half-step beyond platonic. The romance is manifested through little more than hand-holding and lips brushing and, not to worry, culminates in marriage before anything else.

Yes, it has lots of cop talk, for the story is revealed primarily through dialogue. But the language is entirely tame with only the most infrequent profanity, and even then the worse these polite police and kooky killer offer is the rare "damn" or "bitch."

No, neither you nor your granddaughter will predict the plot. In this Mystery (Handicapped/Police Procedural) novel, where, who and how the killer will next strike will be a surprise.

Indicia: Midnight Hours by Vivian Gilbert Zabel; Copyright 2008; 4RV Publishing LLC; Hardback, 215 pages, seventeen chapters, plus a prologue and epilogue; $18.00.