Book Review: Driven to Murder

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Driven to Murder     Amazon US PB Amazon Canada PB
Judith Skillings
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Woman Main Character   Amateur Sleuth
Series: Rebecca Moore # 3
Avon, Feb 2006, $6.99, 368 pp.

Rebecca Monroe own Vintage & Classics, a car restoration shop in Head Tide, Maryland, which is the prime reason Racer Peyton Madison’s chief mechanic hires as part of the crew in the open-wheel race at Indianapolis. She is glad to get away from home after learning the people who raised her aren’t her biological parents and she has a grandmother she knows nothing about. Being at Indie is a dream comes true for Rebecca who loves driving vehicles from the sixties, seventies, and eighties.

The dream turns into a nightmare when a rash of accidents happen including a cut break-line, watered gas and stripped lug nuts occur. The car originally supposed to race is so torn up that Peyton replaces that car with the more expensive and glamorous Lotus 49C. Rebecca is positive that the accidents were really sabotage in disguise; her assertion is confirmed when someone shoots at them hitting the windshield. Needing the money and not wanting any negative publicity, Peyton refuses to call the police, a decision that will cost him when the saboteur comes after him. Rebecca is determined to find out who the criminal is and why Peyton is the target; a choice that puts the life of an innocent child, who attached herself to Rebecca, in danger.

In DRIVEN TO MURDER, Judith Skillings provides a racing mystery that is complex and cleverly constructed with so more crossroads readers won’t know which path is the right one. The protagonist charges into danger knowing doing nothing will not make things safer. Rebecca is spunky, kind and independent, which brings her the affections of two very different men. Readers will thoroughly enjoy this enthralling mystery.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner