Title: Absinthe of Malice
Author: Pat Browning
Publisher: Krill Press 
Genre: mystery 
Copyright: 2001, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-9821443-1-2

       I opened Absinthe of Malice to read while I waited, something to fill otherwise wasted time. What I discovered was a plot and characters that grabbed me and pulled me into the story. I couldn't sleep until the book was finished.

       Pat Browning’s craft, to weave a believable and realistic mystery, with crime, hatred, love, and hope all mixed together, would interest most readers. I’m picky about what I read, and I often find myself editing rather than enjoying. However, this book gave me very few opportunities to reach for my mental red pencil. Penny MacKennzie, a reluctant detective and heroine, decided to find the truth about her friend’s death. Even if she did stumble into a couple of messy situations that would stop my heart, she survived with everything but pride in tact.

       The secrets of a small town, and the power struggles often found, created the backdrop for a grave with bones on the edge of a cotton field, the deaths of two women, and the shifting of money and land. What effect did the history of three men have on the present and future of their descendants? The answer is twisted among the romance and love stories of two generations.

       Absinthe of Malice is fast paced, racing the reader from one scene to another, between the normal activities of life to the creepy darkness of late night explorations, from a touching scene between older lovers to the meeting and rekindling of an old love. After all, a good mystery needs a touch of romance, and that of this book isn’t graphic, but just tantalizing enough to be “just right” for the imagination of the reader to add details.

      I enjoyed the book and recommend it, even though a couple of spots aren’t as smooth as the rest. The few, very few, glitches aren’t noticeable through a first reading.

Copies can be ordered through any bookstore, online at http://amazon.com or http://bn.com , or as a Kindle e-book at http://kindlebooks.com .

         Police detective Martin Rogers is recovering from a shooting, working hard to regain the use of his legs. To fill in the long hours of inactivity, Rogers spends time in an internet chat room, playing cards with a regular group of surfers. That is until the witching hour, when he and the mysterious woman known only as Midnight connect via cyberspace and disappear into their own virtual world. Martin finds himself becoming more and more intrigued and enamoured by the elusive woman, who seems to find him strangely attractive despite his disability. When Midnight refuses to reveal any personal details about herself, despite Martin being openly honest with her, he begins to suspect that the woman he is falling for may not be all that she seems.
            Martin confides his concerns to two of his fellow detectives, and soon he and his colleagues are joined by Assistant District Attorney Lisa Harris as a web of previous suspicious deaths of disabled victims emerges, all of whom appear to have been in contact with the mysterious Midnight.
            A task force is set up to investigate the murders, and soon Martin, Lisa, and the team are involved in a case so complex, and so baffling, that they begin to feel as though they are chasing a shadow, a clever and resourceful criminal who they describe as being “like fog that disappears in bright light.”
            When police dispatcher Denise Woods is attacked and almost killed by the murderer, the police finally believe they are on the trail of Midnight, only to find yet more clouds of mystery as they attempt to penetrate the veil of the elusive killer.
           What links Midnight with the name Norma Fields, and is Norma connected to the oddly named Norm Able? What connection does the reportedly dead sailor J.R Olson have with the case?
            Vivian Zabel has crafted a beautifully and hauntingly compelling crime drama that leads the reader down one blind alleyway after another as Martin Rogers attempts to unravel the mystery. The tension is wonderfully wracked up as the storyline builds towards its shattering conclusion. Without doubt, this is one for the crime fiction aficionados, a book that cries out to be read, and one which I found very hard to put down once I’d begun. The characters are believable, the underlying romance that builds between Martin and the beautiful Lisa is tenderly and realistically handled, and the fear that things could go disastrously wrong for the heroes of this tale, right up to the end, is so palpable one can almost reach out and touch it.
            A great read, tension personified, wonderfully written!
                                    Brian L Porter
Author, A Study in Red – The Secret Journal of Jack the Ripper, Avenue of the Dead, Purple Death,  and the award-winning The Nemesis Cell.