Spitfire
Written by Annette Sandoval
Narrated by Emily Beresford
3/5
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About this audiobook
Twenty-eight-year-old Tomi Reyes is a documentary filmmaker who moonlights as a receptionist to pay the bills. It’s a pretty easy gig—until she receives an unexpected promotion, and her somewhat interesting life goes totally insane.
For starters, her new boss, Scott Martin, morphs from nice guy into creepy dictator in the space of, like, five seconds. Then Justin Thyme, Tomi’s occasional boyfriend, is found murdered and stuffed inside his refrigerator. Before Tomi can get over the shock, her friend Whim meets the same gruesome fate. Tomi has a sneaking suspicion that new-boss-Scott has a hand in all of this, but the evidence to both of the murders is pointing to her! She is wondering how she'll look in an orange jumper, when her childhood pal is assigned to the case. Nicholas “Nickels” Turino, is now an FBI agent, and a hot one at that. When the killer starts stalking Tomi—going as far as turning her fridge into her waiting tomb—the not-so-swift hand of justice drives Tomi to act. She sets out to unmask the killer herself or die trying. Seriously underdressed for such a cold-blooded death, Tomi is determined to live.
With its larger-than-life heroine and delightfully sarcastic tone, Spitfire offers readers a refreshing alternative to the ho-hum crime novels crowding today’s bookshelves.
Annette Sandoval
Annette Sandoval’s writing is tightly bound to her experience as a Mexican American. She grew up in the barrio neighborhoods of Santa Ana, California, the youngest of five children born to immigrants from Jalisco, Mexico. Her mother named her after Mouseketeer Annette Funicello, wanting one of her children to have an “American” name. She is the author of The Directory of Saints and Homegrown Healing: Traditional Remedies from Mexico, as well as the novel Women Are Like Chickens. Her writing has appeared in national publications and the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and she has been a guest on NPR, CBS, and PBS. She lives today in Northern California.
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Reviews for Spitfire
5 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tomi is a documentary filmmaker that works as a receptionist to make ends meet. When she gets promoted to personal assistant to Scott Martine, her friends start getting murdered. And to top it off she is the primes suspect. Trying to clear her name, catch the killer, get her work done and keep her boss’s hands off her keeps her busy throughout. But this book written with sarcastic dialogue, that it is more fun to participate in Tomi’s misadventures than try and figure out the mystery. This delightful novel is fast paced with no boring overkill and hilarious at points. Makes for a wonderful summer read!
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I picked up Spitfire very cheaply for my kindle,, and I must say that the price is right. Despite flashes of cleverness and a catchy opening, Sandoval falls back on some very silly yet predictable plotting, and the book loses its initial zing. Receptionist Tomi is dealing with an unpleasant job, when her ex is found dead in his refrigerator. Can she unravel the mystery whilst juggling a demanding boss and a new love interest?The summary highlights one of Spitfire's problems - it wants to be romance, comedy, crime novel, thriller, all wrapped up in one. But such a tonal diversity would be a challenge for any writer, and Sandoval is noticeably better at some of the genres than others. Spitfire starts out funny and quirky. This was the strongest part of the book. Tomi is not an especially in-depth character but her wisecracks were amusing enough. Likewise the romance, whilst utterly predictable, is handled in a kind of bubbly, fun way. But the book really falls down on the crime/thriller stuff, and this comes to dominate the latter half of the book. As a crime novel, the clues are arbitrary, often nonsensical and poorly structured. As a thriller, you're never in any doubt that Tomi will pull through, and Sandoval's narrator and the flagrant implausibility of the characters, plot and dialogue involved with the crime sequence pushes away tension like a skilled masseuse. It's much better, for everyone, when books finish stronger than they began. Unfortunately the opposite was the case with this one.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Not sure why I got this book - some link or ther says "you might like this book" and as it was free courtesy of Amazon prime I thought why not indeed. The first part of the book was okay but then I really got enthused. Yes it's a thriller, the story line isn't that deep, but the characters are superb. It moves along briskly and certainly eventually I couldn't put it down. The characters were so real and appealing I was imagining them in my mind's eye especially the central character the heroine Tami Reyes. Somewhat reminiscent of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum.This would make a superb movie.