The Thirteenth Rose

March 15, 2013
Late night radio host Charlie D returns (One Fine Day You're Gonna Die, 2010), this time to stop a Valentine killing spree. Charlie's guest on Valentine's Day is Misty, the 25-year-old ex-escort and pregnant wife of CVOX's 83-year-old owner. After receiving a weblink to grisly footage of a prostitute being murdered by a masked man who promises another execution in exactly one hour, Charlie and his producer scramble to summon Kevin O'Hanlon, the station's raving, right-wing talk host, whose ranting about cleansing the streets of filth has prompted the formation of O'Hanlon's Warriors, a gang bent on achieving its guru's goal. With sex workers placed squarely on the side of the angels, Bowen steers the narrative away from its expected course and focuses on the good that could come out of regulated sex work. Charlie D continues to be the compassionate, complex, beating heart of Bowen's crisply paced series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)