What's New

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Which line stood out from all the others in the book? 
"This is the most important thing. Don't forget who you are, Lucy Prestipino. The only thing that's changed is the superficial stuff. Your name, your looks, your occupation. None of that matters. Don't let Lucy disappear. Promise me."


General Summary for Context:
PLOWED OVER by Ellen Ann Callahan is a Mystery Novel about Lucy Prestipino a.k.a. Happy Holiday, a woman under the Witness Security Protection Program who stumbled upon a dead man's body while in her new job plowing snow.  She knew she needed to keep a low profile, but she couldn't help but investigate the death of Bernie Singleton, the man she found frozen in the snow.  Jimmy Bittinger, her State Trooper friend, warned her against it.  But to keep her mind off her former life, Lucy continued to pursue her investigation.  What happens next would determine not only the resolution to Bernie's death but also to Lucy's life that has been put on hold since the day she took on the name of Happy Holiday.

Concise Review: 
Plowed Over by Ellen Ann Callahan is a masterfully written mystery that will keep you guessing until the very end!  Its power is in its simplicity. Once you start reading, you're immediately gripped with the protagonist, Lucy Prestipino a.k.a Happy Holiday. Lucy's character was well fleshed out, believable but really likable. She had a rather shady past, but she didn't walk around with a chip on her shoulder. She was instead kind, helpful and willing to go the extra mile for others because she knew how hard life could really be. There were times when she showed how she missed her old life and her old self, but even in those moments, she did what she thought was practical for the moment instead of wallowing in the past.  


The other characters were also well developed. There's Jimmy, a Trooper who obviously had feelings for Lucy. There was also Romero, Lucy's ex-boyfriend who was involved in a gang that resulted in Lucy's need to enter WITSEC (Witness Security Protection Program.) Even the supporting characters like Deputy Peter Etcher, Lucy's WITSEC handler, and Christine White, her new-found friend were very authentic you can easily imagine them as people you've met or really known.


The book's steady pacing helped me to appreciate every moment of the story. I was not hurried nor dragged. I had the time I needed to process every bit of clue with Lucy. I thought this provided a realistic and natural flow to the development of the investigation as well as the slow-burn kind of romance woven within the novel. Further, the first-person point of view made things even more intimate. There's nothing like being able to know what Lucy herself was thinking and feeling at the moment.


Moreover, the descriptions of the scenes were brilliant. Callahan did her research well even in the technical aspects of the story such as the task of plowing snow. There was also the light touch of humor, the flawless development of the plot as well as a satisfying end that would make any reader definitely want to read more books from the same author.