THE BLIND DEVOTION OF IMOGENE, billed as #1 in a series...stop here, no need for more

THE BLIND DEVOTION OF IMOGENE (The Misadventures of Imogene Taylor #1)
DAVID PUTNAM
Level Best Books (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$5.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: In 1973, Imogene Taylor is seventy-five years old, on parole for murder, and works at a store that sells dented canned goods. Twelve years earlier, she went to prison for killing her love-of-her-life-husband, Wayne. She called it an accident. The judge and jury called it murder. Imogene’s parole agent is constantly on her case, looking to send her back to prison.

During her time in prison, Imogene had to vent her angst at someone and sent the sitting Presidents (during the ten years in prison) threatening letters bringing her to the attention of the Secret Service. She does extensive research and writes a novel, Peekaboo POTUS, about the assassination of a US President. She sends the book "over the transom" to one publisher. The publisher, after being unable to contact Imogene, comes looking for her.

The Cigar, an organized crime gangster, walks into Dentco, where Imogene works, and extorts the store for protection money. Pay up or get firebombed. The entire strip center is under this threat.Imogene must dodge an overzealous parole agent while dealing with a dead woman in the neighbor’s garage. She’s on parole for murder, so she can’t report it to the police. No one would believe her. Imogene and Suz think the woman in the box is Suz’s long-estranged mother. Rather than reveal Suz’s father as the probable killer, Imogene convinces Suz to bury her mom under the avocado tree in the backyard. Until Thelma, Suz’s mother, appears after reading the obituary.

It's a race to uncover the real killer as Imogene dodges gangsters, family members, and a publisher on her quest to find the truth.

At the same time, Imogene’s neighbor dies of natural causes and leaves a hoarder’s mess to his daughter, Suzanne. Imogene helps Suz clear out a pyramid of boxes filled with junk in the garage. At the bottom of the pile, they find a box with a dead woman who has been hidden for many years.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: This book is a mess! The author, well-known as the creator of the eleven-book-long Bruno Johnson tough-guy cop/sleuth thrillers, ought to know better how to trim and prune repetitive dialogue, description, and general focus inconsistencies.

Also, why was this set in 1973? There was no reason I could discern that it needed to be in, or benefited from, such a setting. Given when this character's alleged murder takes place, for example, I'd think she would shy away from writing a novel about a presidential assassination. Not only was she locked up the year Kennedy was shot, she's writing her novel during the famously Trumpian vengeance-seeking Nixon's reign of terror.

You'd do well to stay off either one's radar.

Stick to the Bruno Johnson series.