Volume 12, Issue 08
The PEACEKEEPER
Page 9
Book Review
RADM
Thomas
Pawelczak
Security
&
Morale Officer
Kelley Armstrong has another bestseller with her new Urban
Fantasy series with the ?rst book, OMENS: A CAINSVILLE NOVEL.
The se ng is a small town outside Chicago where Oliver Taylor?
Jones goes to ?nd her roots. At 24, she had just learned? ?she was
adopted and her biological parents are a pair of convicted serial
murders. And her real name is Eden.
Hounded by the media, pursued by the father of one of her
parents’ vic ms, and shunned by her adop ve mother and poli ?
cally mo vated boyfriend, Olivia ?nds her way to Cainsville. Here
she ?nds work as a waitress, a job she is ill?suited for as she’s a product of a rich, socialite family, but
it puts food on the table and pays the rent. Along the way she befriends a black cat, is terrorized by
ravens, makes friends with a lady who reads Tarot Cards and hires her biological mother’s lawyer, Ga?
briel Walsh, to ?nd out the truth behind the serial murders.
Ms. Armstrong spins a spell?binding tale of a town without churches, the occult, the mystery of
the original murders, a conspiracy involving the, CIA? Risking death, Olivia and Gabriel interview Pro?
fessors and drug addicts, get shot at and shot back, trip over dead bodies and even hide some. Her
mother is assaulted and hospitalized while in prison. Is this just a jail?house incident or an a empt to
silence her? It may be a cliché`, but, the plot thickens.
I did email Ms. Armstrong however, over a detail that American readers might not recognize.
When going to ques on a man, Olivia ?nds a red, plas c poppy outside the apartment door. Ms.
Armstrong, in the story, explains that the poppy is used to refer to the dead on Remembrance Day in
November. I wrote her and by way of introduc on, referenced a conversa on we had at Polaris. She
was kind enough to say she remembered me. I explained that many Americans may not be familiar
with the poppy and Remembrance Day and that for the US edi on she may want to consider Memo?
rial Day and the poppy, especially as the story line is taking place in May. She replied that another
had already pointed this out and thanked me. And that normally her US editor would have caught the
Canadian reference. I’m sorry; I should have explained that Ms. Armstrong is Canadian. Therefore, it
was reasonable for her to use a Canadian reference. Regardless, she made me feel good that she
both remembered me and appreciated my comments. Needless to say, I can’t wait for the next in?
stallment.