Call
to Kill by Joan Albarella is the second in this series about a lesbian
Anglican priest, former Vietnam vet, and of course, amateur solver of
mysteries. This second adventure pits the heroine against the owner of a sleazy
gentlemen’s club in Canada where prostitution and drugs are a lethal
combination.

Call
to Kill is set on the small college town of Sheridan in upstate New York
and in a small town just across the Canadian border. Nikki Barnes is still
serving as the chaplain for St. David University, however, this case has little
if anything to do with her collegiate connections. This case is personal and
deeply rooted in her past. While Nikki was serving in Vietnam, she almost
murdered Trang, a young Vietnamese prostitute in an act of revenge for the
death of her lover. In that pivotal life-changing event, Nikki decides to adopt
Trang as her “mama-san” and eventually assisted Trang and her infant daughter
to flee the country. While Nikki is ending her military career in pursuit of
becoming a priest, Trang meets and marries Douglas Fairburn, a wealth American
businessman. As Tracy Fairburn, Trang raises her two beautiful daughters and runs
a successful import-export business, but Trang’s life is now filled with
sorrow. Celine, Trang’s elder daughter has been seduced into a life of drugs,
topless dancing, and prostitution by Joe Buglio, a sexy but disreputable
mobster. Trang turns to her old friend Nikki for help. Nikki goes to Buglio’s
club and secretly arranges a meeting with Celine. Celine agrees to leave “the
Life” but not to return home to her mother. When Nikki arrives at Celine’s
boardinghouse to help her escape, she finds Celine dead from a drug overdose.
Nikki believes her death is suspicious, and decides to investigate. In her
attempt to prove Buglio responsible and to bring him to justice, Nikki also
discovers that all is not what it seems with Trang, her business contacts, and the
Fairburn household. Dare Nikki dig deeper into the case and risk discovering
unpleasant things about the people in her life?

Like the first book in this series
(Agenda for Murder), Call to Kill is about more than just
getting “the bad guys.” It grapples with unique and difficult issues and their
impact on the inner workings of human psychology. In Call to Kill, Albarella deals with the first hand experience of war
and its impact. The author explores the psyche of the hard-edged adult Trang
who as a young Vietnamese girl was raped and forced by the rejection of her
village, to become a street prostitute and eventually bear a soldier’s child.
Trang’s Afro-Asian child, Celine, suffers the rejection of her peers for her
mixed racial identity. Her obsession for finding her soldier father leads to
the web of lies and deceit spun by Buglio and to ultimately to her death. The
experience of Nikki as an American soldier in Vietnam is counterbalanced by the
experience of Mary “Magpie” York, Nikki’s lover’s friend, as a British
photographer documenting the Falkland Crisis. The stories of their personal
tragedies overshadow the mystery of who murdered a young prostitute. On a
lighter note, I am happy to see the return of the character of Barrett
Fairburn, Trang’s American daughter, who lusts after Nikki. She offers humorous
retorts to Nikki’s too often cynical comments.

Joan Albarella is an Associate
Professor at the University of Buffalo Educational                 Opportunity Center. She is the author of
four books of poetry entitled: Mirror Me
(1973); Poems for The Asking (1975); Spirit and Joy; and the bilingual Mujeres, Flores, Fantasia. There
are two books in “Nikki Barnes Mystery
Series" Agenda for
Murder (1999) and Call to Kill
(2000). “She was recognized by J. Mark Press in the Reader Vote Award for Best
Poem in Notable American Poets; by the International Biographical Centre of
England as International Woman of the Year in 1992 and received the Twentieth
Century Award of Achievement in 1993. She also won the Oxner-Lytle
Distinguished Service award in 1999 and is listed in over twenty-two American
and British Who’s Who collections. Joan is a member of Poets and Writers;
Sisters In Crime; and the Italian American Writers Association”

Call
to Kill by Joan Albarella is more than a complex mystery about murder and
underworld doings. This is can be more than another light cozy murder. It
challenges the reader to think about long-term impact caused by the experience
of war. I highly recommend this book.

© 2002 Su Terry

Su Terry: Education:
B.A. in History from Sacred Heart University, M.L.S. in Library Science from
Southern Connecticut State College, M.R.S. in Religious Studies/Pastoral
Counseling from Fairfield University, a M.Div. in Professional Ministry from
New Brunswick Theological Seminary, a Certificate in Spirituality/Spiritual
Direction from Sacred Heart University. She is a Licensed Minister of the
United Church of Christ and an Assistant Professor in Library Science at
Dowling College, Long Island, NY. Interests in Mental Health: She is interested
in the interplay between psychology, biology, and mysticism. Her current area
of research is in the impact of hormonal fluctuation in female Christian
mystics.

Categories: Fiction