Short Story Sunday: Pigeon Tony’s Last Stand by Lisa Scottoline
Pigeon Tony’s Last Stand
Series: We Could Be Heroes: Short story 1 of 5
Author: Lisa Scottoline
Narrator: Edoardo Ballerini
Published: February 7, 2023
Audiobook: 1 hour 13 minutes
Reviewed By: Jessica
Date Read: February 10, 2023
Jessica’s Rating: 4 stars
Book Description:
When amiable Italian immigrant Pigeon Tony discovers that local drug dealers are pressuring his young neighbor into joining their ranks, he resolves to put an end to the crime wave before it can take over the community. Pigeon Tony knows the law isn’t always on the right side, but it takes only one person to rally a revolution.
Jessica’s Review:
This is the first short story in Amazon’s We Could be Heroes series and takes all of the ‘Tony’s’ characters from Scottoline’s popular Rosato and DiNunzio series. I am a fan of Scottoline and was very excited when I heard about this short story, and I have really missed her R&D novels.
As the title shows, Pigeon Tony is the featured character in this short story, but all of the Tony’s appear along with Mary DiNunzio! All of the Tony’s are much older and are scene stealers in the R&D series. If you have read the series then you already know what you need to know about these characters that you have grown to love over the years. If this is your introduction, the story may seem a bit ‘out there’ for you with the way the characters act.
Pigeon Tony’s Last Stand is a quick and enjoyable read for fans of the series. The narrator did a great job. I really hope Scottoline gets back to the R&D series, but it seems that she has a new love of writing historical fiction.
Purchase Links: This short story series is currently available only on Kindle and Audible.
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Book Review: Save Me by Lisa Scottoline
Save Me
Author: Lisa Scottoline
Narrator: Cynthia Nixon
Published: April 12, 2011
Audiobook
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Read: September 9-15, 2021
Jessica’s Rating: 3 stars
Book Description:
Save Me will have readers wondering just how far they would go to save the ones they love. Lisa Scottoline is writing about real issues that resonate with real women, and the results are emotional, heartbreaking and honest.
Rose McKenna volunteers as a lunch mom in her daughter Melly’s school in order to keep an eye on Amanda, a mean girl who’s been bullying her daughter. Her fears come true when the bullying begins, sending Melly to the bathroom in tears. Just as Rose is about to follow after her daughter, a massive explosion goes off in the kitchen, sending the room into chaos.
Rose finds herself faced with the horrifying decision of whether or not to run to the bathroom to rescue her daughter or usher Amanda to safety. She believes she has accomplished both, only to discover that Amanda, for an unknown reason, ran back into the school once out of Rose’s sight. In an instance, Rose goes from hero to villain as the small community blames Amanda’s injuries on her. In the days that follow, Rose’s life starts to fall to pieces, Amanda’s mother decides to sue, her marriage is put to the test, and worse, when her daughter returns to school, the bullying only intensifies. Rose must take matters into her own hands and get down to the truth of what really happened that fateful day in order to save herself, her marriage and her family.
In the way that Look Again had readers questioning everything they thought they knew about family, Save Me will have readers wondering just how far they would go to save the ones they love. Lisa Scottoline is writing about real issues that resonate with real women, and the results are emotional, heartbreaking and honest.
Jessica’s Review:
I am a Lisa Scottoline fan, and will read anything written by her. I have read books I love and others that were just ok for me. Save Me was just an ok read for me, though this will be a book for all the parents out there to read.
Rose McKenna has volunteered as a lunch mom at her daughter Melly’s school. Melly was born with a large birthmark on her face and has dealt with bullying; so much so that Melly just switched schools. But the bullying continues, especially from one specific girl: Amanda. One day during lunch Rose is trying to talk to Amanda about the bullying when there is an explosion in the kitchen, which causes chaos. Rose escorts Amanda and a couple other girls to the door to go outside then goes back to find Melly, who has locked herself in the bathroom.
Rose ends up on the news as a “mother hero” saving her daughter, until it is found out that Amanda went back inside and was severely injured. Then Rose becomes a pariah to the small community. As information unfolds Rose realizes she faces several legal battles in addition to being determined to find out what actually happened to Amanda and what caused the explosion.
Anyone can say that they would do this or they would do that in an emergency, but you don’t truly know until you are in said emergency. We see what Rose does and you can make your own conclusion as to what she did. Some things that Rose did came off as naïve to me: I mean if your husband is a lawyer, wouldn’t you take his advice to do or not do certain things??? Ummm yes, but did Rose listen to her husband? No, and thus made things worse for herself.
I am giving Save Me a solid 3 stars, which is a decent read, but I had issues with many things that Rose did. I was into the story and was fully invested on if Amanda was going to survive or not. I adored Melly, she is a sweet child who loves reading and Harry Potter. The actual cause of the explosion was a bit of left field for me and it seemed like Scottoline was running out of ideas and wanted a happy ending. For the most part the ending did work for me with everything being tied together.
I listened to the audiobook which was narrated by Cynthia Nixon who did a great job! Though this is not my favorite written by Scottoline, I do say to look into her library of many novels! For me her legal dramas/thrillers series of Rosato & Associates and Rosato & DuNunzio are my favorites and I look for more of those novels to come.
Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Someone Knows
Author: Lisa Scottoline
Published: April 9, 2019
Audiobook
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Read: April 30- May 7, 2019
Jessica’s Rating: 2 stars
Book Description:
Twenty years ago, in an upscale suburb of Philadelphia, four teenagers spent a summer as closest friends: drinking, sharing secrets, testing boundaries. When a new boy looked to join them, they decided to pull a prank on him, convincing him to play Russian roulette as an initiation into their group. They secretly planned to leave the gun unloaded—but what happened next would change each of them forever.
Now three of the four reunite for the first time since that horrible summer. The guilt—and the lingering question about who loaded the gun—drove them apart. But after one of the group apparently commits suicide with a gun, their old secrets come roaring back. One of them is going to figure out if the new suicide is what it seems, and if it connects to the events of that long-ago summer. Someone knows exactly what happened—but who? And how far will they go to keep their secrets buried?
Jessica’s Review:
I adore Lisa Scottoline and she is one of my ‘go to’ authors. I will want to read her upcoming book without even knowing what it is about. That being said, Someone Knows had an intriguing description that failed miserably for me. It was like she went solely for the ‘shock factor’ with this one, with a lot being unnecessary. For me all of the characters except for Allie are 100% unlikeable. They all are dysfunctional in some way, some worse than others. With their issues combined you also see their immaturity.
Scottoline doesn’t usually write teen characters, and this novel shows she may need to stay away from teens and stick with adults. The backstory to all the characters was not needed for me as I was not invested in these characters. I wanted to get to the night in question and back to present day.
The last quarter of the book involved the climax, but I just wanted to get to the end. When I got to the final twist it was so unbelievable I just rolled my eyes. Everything was ‘to the extreme’ on this one, especially with one particular character, and I am still not sure why this character did what they did. The story also comes around full circle and tied in a bow for the ending, but that bow was not pretty.
I hate to say this, but stay away from Someone Knows and read Scottoline’s other novels.
Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK