Defenseless-Celeste Marsella

Defenseless
Celeste Marsella
Dell, Oct 2008, $6.99
ISBN 9780440244660

The four female friends work at the office of the Rhode Island Attorney General. They go out together on weekly “Sabbats”; this time drinking a bit too much at the seedy Fez, a mob hangout. Laurie, Shannon, Beth and Marianna are leaving when the murdered body of a young woman is tossed from a car.

The quartet knows they should never have gone to that dive so each lies to their respective bosses. They quietly investigate not wanting to raise the ire of the AG Vincent Piganno, the police, or the mob. However as the truth of what they did and saw surfaces, they are removed from the coed homicide investigation so as to not taint the case. Meanwhile ADA Mariana takes the hit with Piganno so is the one sent undercover to Holton College to learn why student Melinda Hastings was with mobsters; similar to the question the four Sabbat females keep asking themselves why they went there too.

Marianna lives up to the title as she is DEFENSELESS while working undercover at the college. Although her soliloquies can be disruptive, fans will enjoy her escapades as she struggles with a touch of romance from a babe magnet and plenty of danger. Celeste Marsella provides an enjoyable romantic suspense thriller.

Harriet Klausner