Who She Was: Book 1 (Sylvia Wilcox Mysteries 3)

I really enjoyed the storyline and its surprise ending. I could see how the PI could have been channeling efforts towards one suspect. Very clever in tying it all together at the end.I do need to mention some discrepancies, however. In mentioning streets, it was said that an area was north of Telegraph when in actuality Telegraph runs north/ south, so the area mentioned was east of Telegragh. Same again mentioning Newburgh Road and Six mile. It was stated that the house visited was north of Newburgh when it also runs north/south.There was a passage about Carson giving the check for the work performed, stating "it was more than he owned" rather than "what he owed", quite a difference indeed! Since I read this on Kindle, I thought these errors can be easily fixed.I got this as a freebie, and now plan to read more of the author's books!

Good story line. Kept my interest (ADHD 😂). Will move on to the other works of this author. Fantastic job.

Who She Was: Book 1 by Braylee Parkinson was a really good read. I kept guessing wrong right along with the P.I., Sylvia. There were secrets all around, but the biggest surprise was who actually did it & got away with it.

Am not finished with the book yet and am really liking it since I live in the area being written about. That said, I was at first confused when the author wrote about a character living north of Telegraph since Telegraph runs north and south. Also saying somebody lived between Fenkell (which is Five Mile outside of Detroit) and Six Mile (to keep in context, should said been McNichols) is not accurate street-wise.

In this blog post, I reviewed Braylee Parkinson's Who She Was, the first installment in the Sylvia Wilcox mysteries series. This captivating mystery debut will keep you guessing right to the end. For Sylvia Wilcox, she's a young widow and a former cop, who received her first mystery case to solve a two-year-old unsolved murder of Liza Stark as a private investigator when her husband Carson Stark asked her to investigate into the mystery behind it. With her brother-in-law Martin working by her side, they delved into her background as a wife and mother and unraveled the threads of her past. Who could've killed her in the poorest neighborhood in Detroit and why? Was it her best friend? Her family and in-laws? Or someone unbeknown to them since the DPD believed it was an affair gone wrong? The deepest they dug closer to the truth, the most suspects they had to believe it could be as they separate the truth between the secrets and the lies. In the end, they pieced the together the puzzle with the biggest surprising twist of them all to receive closure to the case. This mystery debut had me on tenterhooks from start to finish, starting with page one. I instantly cared for Sylvia, who mourned her late husband Derek, so young into their marriage. I also liked how she worked well with Martin to help solve the case. The more I've gotten to know about Liza and her sordid past, the more I've felt sorry for her and what she'd gone through in the end before her untimely death in the most cruelest way. This pulled at my heart strings. I loved the scenic settings in Brightmoor and Northville Township, and in Detroit. It also showed how well it depicted how poor and rich both neighborhoods were in Michigan from the slums to a lavish lifestyle for the locations. The theme of the story is how well perceived we think and treat others.

Be prepared for the many twists and turns that keep the storyline so intriguing and that will keep you turning pages late into the night and on into the early morning hours. Complicated family relationships on both sides of the track keep the characters and their interactions real. I want to know what happens to the characters next! Please tell me there will be a sequel!!

A different writing style , and one soon got caught up in cases that spanned fifteen yearsWith a good main character and flowing plot, that was well done.

This m yst ery d ebut had me on ten terh ooks fr om start to fi nish, sta rting with page one. I in stan tly ca red for Syl via, who mou rned her late husb and De rek, so you ng into th eir ma rriag e. I also lik ed ho w she wo rk ed w ell with M artin to h elp so lve th e c ase.

I HATE to leave 1* reviews but some authors really don't help themselves and I feel forced into it. This story sounded fascinating and has a LOT of splendid reviews so I downloaded it. However, it clearly hasn't been properly checked by any type of editing process and the author forgets her own story, so continuation is all over the place.I found it most peculiar in the first place when the husband with the murdered wife told Sylvia that her friend had called him to report that she'd stood her up for coffee......I'd find that bloody strange myself. THEN a few pages later, Sylvia asks him if his wife had made it for the coffee meet with her pal......sigh.....then she decides to interview 3 people on the following day but had altered one of those by the time morning arrived !! THEN I got to 9% and it stated the murder had taken place over two years ago, when hubby had already told us it was seventeen months ago and I'd seen enough. Seems I was paying more attention than either the author was or other reviewers.........I think this was an odd observation, too, "....the more people you include in your life, the more difficult it is to be happy" !! No explanation as to what she meant here.She wrote refugee and not refuge and missed an apostrophe at one point but that was it for spelling/grammatical mistakes.I'd have liked to know what was going to happen in this tale but sadly can't carry on with it in its present presentation.

At first I liked this but the more I read the more mundane it became. The main character, Sylvia, was one dimensional, seemingly having no friends and no outside activities. We knew very little about her, only that she’d been in the police force and was widowed. How old is she? Does she have family? We didn’t even know she was black until well over half way through so visualising her was impossible. Martin was another one dimensional character of whom we knew little. The writing was fine, as was the plot, but there was little, if any action and the book comprised of interviews, traveling from one person to the next, followed by mental question after question which soon became very tedious. I got about two thirds of the way through then gave up. This could have been good but it wasn’t.

This book was offered as a Kindle special which is a great way to discover new writers, especially with the second-hand bookshops closed.Set in Detroit and Ann Arbor – which is a refreshing change from New York, San Francisco and Chicago – Who She Was captures the attention from the start and continues its pace through the book. While plot-driven, the characters develop well and are interesting and individual.While set in the contrasting worlds of comfortable affluence and grinding poverty, drug addiction and dysfunctional families, Parkinson does not fall into stereotypes or become preachy. The hero (Sylvia Wilcox) is a former cop now private investigator. She is haunted by events of her past, but doesn’t use them as an excuse or crutch.The plotting is tight and the ending has the requisite, “I should have seen that coming!” quality about it. It is a detective story that does not deceive – it’s all there, the real clues, the false trails, the dead-ends. At no time is the reader misled. Wilcox methodically follows such evidence as there is in a two-year-old murder. She has to judge people and decide who is lying to her, who is concealing things and who is being straight.What Wilcox has is a subtle but strong moral compass. She talks about going to Mass and talking to her parish priest, and does this in a way that is natural and convincing. It also reveals some of her motivation and general intentions in life.This extends to the treatment of race (both by Wilcox and, obviously, by Parkinson). Race is a factor in the novel, but it is not the dominating factor, nor is it used as an excuse for social comment or a political platform. People are people in this novel. Some are villains, some are victims, some are caught in the middle and some are unscathed.Race, drugs, poverty, and ignorance are elements that build the characters and drive the plot. They do not distract from the story telling, but add to its texture and credibility.While not a ground-breaking novel, What She Was is an accomplished piece of writing and plotting. I shall certainly read more of Parkinson and expect we will all hear more about her, too.

A Private Investigator trying to find out who murdered a woman 2 years (or maybe even 17 months) after her death. She is dedicated to her job and follows lead after lead to hunt down the killer. Seems she worked very hard at this, but it doesn't make very interesting reading at all. I was tempted to give up several times, but always picked up the book, albeit not enthusiastically, but only because I'm curious and wanted to know what actually happened. So I waded through the tedium to the unexciting end. Several typos.

The plot was confusing and doesn't track from start to finish. This writer suffers from my major gripe. The book is overloaded with spurious detail. When Sylvia arrives for a meeting with a member of the Stark family it takes her six pages before a word is spoken. The driveway, the front of the house, the hallway, the staircase, the lady's clothes, hair and make-up are laid on with a trowel. Most readers have an imagination. A single sentence would give the reader enough information to paint their own picture. Mrs Stark was old money Detroit. Right, I get it. Now let's get to the interview. Despite the clutter and the plot holes this has amassed thousands of reviews. What did I miss?