Title: Framed – A Black Swann Investigation

Author: Wayne Kerr

Genre: Mystery / Thriller

Toronto’s newest homicide detective, Reggie Swann, seemed to have it all: great career, handsome husband and plans to start a family, until she was framed for murder…

A cop has very few friends in prison.  After surviving ten brutal years behind bars, Reggie’s conviction is finally overturned thanks to her tenacious mother, a new forensic test and a very clever lawyer. She quickly discovers that getting her old life back won’t be as easy as she hoped. To many, she was still as the media had dubbed her: ‘Black Swann – murderer and cop-gone-bad’. The Toronto Police Department still considers her to be a suspect, Reggie’s husband has remarried and the real killer is still on the loose.

Before Reggie can return to Toronto and solve the crime that ruined her life, she reluctantly agrees to investigate a murder in her home town of Penticton, only to discover the two cases which are separated by ten years and five provinces might somehow be connected. Will anyone believe the wild theories of the disgraced detective?

The real murderer does. He framed her once, this time Reggie Swann must die!

My Review : 3 Stars

Thank you to Enchanted Book Promotions for an ARC, in exchange for an honest review. I am sorry this is a little late… I had a deadline to meet! Forgive me.

Ooohh kay, the first thing to say is this novel of almost 200 pages is well written, in the sense that it is impeccable with the editing, great job. The second thing to say is the plot outline is a great one. It moves at a good pace also.

There are readers out there who will love this book to a five star rating, this is just my personal reading experience. What I did find (as a reader) was the plot had been wrote so simply and straight forward.  We learn who the villain is before the victim and watch his actions play out, while the victim is unaware. Great I love this and this storytelling never fails to grip me! And a real chance to take readers on a journey and ride. In this case,  for me it is so straight forward in the storytelling, everything falls into place neatly.

The characters, I had a bit of confusion with the villain. It took me a while to work out that he is Schizophrenic and has two personalities. The villain ‘who dun it’ and the normal him were hard to separate as two people. For me this was because all I learned through the victim’s POV was ‘ his eyebrows changed shape/shoulders slump forward,’ to define which personality was present in dialogue.  I guess what I’m saying ( in a respectful way) is the villain for me as a reader was not crazy enough, considering the volume of crimes that he carried out. How he came across (to me as a reader) was straight forward, not mentally ill- like really sick considering what he was doing.

I also found that how the author tried to tell readers a character’s ethnicity a little hard to swallow. Reggie has a conversation with a lady who is African- American I read  ‘ we are so different in every way, I looked into her brown African eyes’…  Okay, anyone, of any race can have brown eyes. An African- American person’s eyes are just as brown as the next person’s regardless of the next person’s race, they are not ‘African’  eyes they are brown, just like the next person. There are so many other ways to show, rather than tell a person’s ethnicity in description than just ‘ African eyes’. I read this right in the last chapter.

Overall, I’m giving Framed- Black Swan Investigations 3 stars, as for me as a reader it was okay, moved along well, but simple with a simple villain carrying out very vicious crimes. I respect the authors attempt at being diverse with characters of  a different ethnicity…. but African – Americans are not defined by  ‘African eyes’ , just like a Chinese /Asian person is not defined by ‘Chinese eyes’ they are brown eyes just like anyone else. Work needs to be done on how character’s of different races are represented in this author’s work. Overall, three stars.

Author Bio

Canadian author, Wayne Kerr, was born and raised in the small town of Biggar, Saskatchewan (New York is big, but this is Biggar).  He married his high school sweetheart, Marlene, thirty-nine years ago and has lived happily ever since.  They resided in the United States for the past twenty years, but recently returned to Canada and now call the beautiful Okanagan region of British Columbia home.  The writer honed his story-telling skills while keeping his five younger siblings and later his daughter entertained during long cold winters.  When not reading or writing thrillers, Wayne is probably hiking, biking or playing tennis.

For more information on the author and his books please visit: waynekerrnovels.com or follow him on twitter: @waynekerrnovels