Free (Kindle) Turtle Baby (Bo Bradley Mysteries #3) - Abigail Padgett

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http://www.amazon.com/Turtle-Bradley-Mysteries-Three-ebook/dp/B004V0636K

--This Book was Previously Published by Warner Books in 1996

--Description:

In the third Bo Bradley mystery, a poisoned eight-month-old Maya baby boy living with paid caretakers on the American side of San Diego’s Mexican border grabs Bo’s heart and sends her into Tijuana, where she can legally investigate nothing, in search the little boy’s mother.

When the mother, a successful singer from Guatemala, dies onstage in a Tijuana bar from the effects of a different poison, Bo finds herself snarled in a web of international intrigue. Drug addiction, the music scene, Mayan history and the always-maddening restrictions of Bo's job combine in a fascinating tale that will determine the future of an orphaned baby, and Bo herself.

“A powerful novel with complex characters, a sophisticated love story, evocative descriptions, and heart-stopping action.” Minneapolis Star Tribune

--From Publishers Weekly

When poison from a tropical plant puts eight-month-old Acito, whose name means "little turtle," into a San Diego hospital, child abuse investigator Bo Bradley is drawn into her third suspenseful case (following Strawgirl). According to Andy LaMarche, a hospital pediatrician and Bradley's determined suitor, Acito's caretakers could not have poisoned the baby accidentally. This casts suspicion on Acito's mother, Chac, a bar singer who visited her son just before he fell ill. Bo meets Chac in Tijuana and comes to believe she would not have poisoned her son, but this becomes tough to prove after the woman collapses and dies on stage. Since the San Diego police aren't acting on Acito's case and the Mexican cops don't care about the death of another ex-prostitute, Bo focuses her lively curiosity on Chac's acquaintances and her American husband, who has escaped from from a Louisiana prison. Padgett expertly crafts this mystery, putting her sleuth in the requisite life-threatening situations. What sets her story apart, however, is her description of the workings of public child protection and her convincing portrayal, from the inside, of Bo's efforts to work and live with manic depression.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

--From Library Journal

Social worker/series protagonist Bo Bradley (Strawgirl, Mysterious Pr., 1994) involves herself in the attempted-poisoning case of an infant Mayan brought to the San Diego hospital by its caretakers. Bradley locates the child's aspiring songstress mother-a former drug addict-over in Tijuana, but death claims her before she can retrieve her child. Relying on the bilingual skills of co-worker Estrella, Bradley then vows vengeance on the poisoner. Indian mysticism, Bradley's psychological insights, and other narrative interruptions give rise to riveting and thrilling suspense. Highly recommended.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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This is now FREE:

--Moonbird Boy (Bo Bradley Mysteries #4) - Abigail Padgett

--Previously Published by Warner Books in 1997

Book Description:

In the fourth Bo Bradley mystery, Bo fights her way out of the dark side of her bipolar disorder when a friend is murdered, throwing his difficult son into the child protective system for which she works.

Ghost Flower Lodge is an unconventional psychiatric treatment facility run by a band of Kumeyaay Indians, and host to Bo after the death of her dog casts her into an acute depressive episode. But when another guest at the lodge, successful comedian Mort Wagman, is shot and killed, Bo drags herself back to life in order to help Mort’s strange son, Bird, now an orphan. And in the process discovers a human evil more toxic than rattlesnake venom.

“…Padgett weaves strands of neurophysiological research, Indian ritual, murder, big business, WW II atrocities, family ties and romance… into a gripping novel.” Publisher’s Weekly

Editorial Reviews:

From Publishers Weekly

Moonbird is a six-year-old boy whose future is at the heart of the latest in Padgett's increasingly compelling series featuring manic-depressive sleuth Bo Bradley. Bo meets Moonbird at Ghost Flower Lodge, a psychiatric rehabilitation facility run by the Neji Indians in the desert mountains of Southern California. The boy is there with his father, Mort Wagman, a single parent, aspiring comic and schizophrenic who had recently gone off his medications. Bo (seen last in Turtle Baby) is there climbing out of a deep depression that had been precipitated by the death of her 17-year-old dog.When Mort is shot to death in a nearby canyon, Bo is devastated, but her sympathy for the boy and her job as a social worker for the San Diego Child Protective Services give her impetus to investigate Mort's death and watch over his son, who will be moved into the child welfare system if no relatives are found. Bo, whose illness gives her an acute, reliable self-awareness, has become more forceful and credible with each of her four appearances. Padgett places her in a complex, well-orchestrated plot here, involving the greedy aspirations of a medical management corporation that hopes to franchise the Lodge's traditional Neji healing approach. Firmly rooted in Bo's unique interaction with the world, the narrative develops texture and depth as Padgett weaves strands of neurophysiological research, Indian ritual, murder, big business, WW II atrocities, family ties and romance (in the continuing relationship of Bo and pediatrician Andrew LaMarche) into a gripping novel. Mystery Guild featured alternate.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Sent reeling into a deep depression by the death of her beloved dog Mildred, San Diego Child Protective investigator Bo Bradley's not ready for any untoward excitement in her life. But when Mort Wagman, a volatile standup comic who's been her fellow patient at the Ghost Flower Lodge, is shot to death, it's Bo's job to find a guardian for his six-year-old son Bird, whose family tree has no other branches, and whose attention-deficit hyperactive disorder doesn't make him the world's best candidate for foster placement. On top of Bird's other problems, somebody may be trying to kill him--presumably the same somebody behind the disappearance of Old Ayma, another schizophrenic patient vanished from Ghost Flower Lodge--the same somebody who's taunting Bo, struggling as always with manic-depression, by sending her cruel reminders of Mildred and phoning her to play a yelping dog tape. The obvious culprits are the heavies at MedNet, corporate buccaneers plotting to wrest Ghost Flower Lodge away from the Kumeyaay Indians who founded it. But before Bo's done digging into Mort's past, she will have uncovered a motive more monstrous than either she or the bean-counters at MedNet can imagine. Padgett's fourth novel (Turtle Baby, 1995, etc.) spikes her usual formula--endangered child, tormented antiestablishment heroine, tentacular evil--with her finest, darkest mystery to date. No wonder Bo's so paranoid. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.