Reviewed by William Phenn for Reader Views (9/06)

“Barely Dead” starts out with a quick insight into the heroine Paige Harrington, the globe trotting investigative reporter. A call from her father brings her racing back from England to her home town in Canada. What starts out as a death of a friend and a funeral ends in an ironic twist of betrayal and intrigue. Paige gets more than she bargained for when she follows the story of her dead friend. She meets gangsters, strippers, politicians, and millionaires. Paige goes undercover to get more information and is sucked into a web of adventure that will keep you glued to the pages.

When Paige Harrington asks questions that some don’t want to answer, she begins to fear for her life. While some would like to kill her, others just want her to go away. Paige starts to uncover the reasons her friend died and sets out to prove it was not the way the police reported it. This causes a rift in the town and does more than just ruffle some feathers along the way. She uncovers some dirty laundry that can affect the whole town, yet no one is doing anything about it. Everywhere Paige turns, the web widens to include some very powerful people, including her own father.

“Barely Dead” is dramatically written and has an adventurous style. The characters are colorful and interesting to say the least. The plot is weaved with complexity to the point that the culprit could be anyone of many. This in itself was one of the many aspects of the book that made it an enjoyable read. From beginning to end “Barely Dead” kept me on the edge of my seat. For all lovers of a good murder mystery, McLeod’s book would warrant a read. The suspense and quality of writing makes me give “Barely Dead” my highest A+ rating.

When international freelance journalist, Paige Harrington, receives a phone call from her father informing her of the suicide of her beloved best friend, Wally Adams, her highly tuned instincts scream foul play. She flies back to her hometown, High River, near Calgary, Alberta Canada, and finds that she doesn’t need to travel the world to uncover corruption and deceit. As she steps into the last days of Wally’s life, she discovers his protests against the building of a multi-million dollar fertilizer plant left him with many enemies, and that his death meant the resurrection of the toxic deal. What she can’t figure out is why Wally drew a connection between the fertilizer plant, “Project 321”, and a murdered stripper named Peppermint. To uncover the truth, Paige decides it’s time to utilize her beauty and brains, and becomes a stripper at The Garter, the same club as the murdered woman. In doing so, she enters a world where everyone has a secret, and everything around her is more complex than she ever imagined.

The novel moves at a steady pace, painting each scene with concise detail. The chapters are snapshot short, which in the beginning of the story helps to keep plot moving, but as the story progresses, tends to interrupt the flow as many chapters containing the same scene could be blended into one for a smoother progression. The side mysteries that branch off the larger conflict of Project 321 help to keep tension in the plot since the grander mystery of whose behind it all is revealed fairly early to the reader. The women of The Garter are not only realistic, but very sympathetic in the lives they’ve led. Where Barely Dead truly shines is on the well developed character of Paige Harrington whose confidence and determination creates a strong female heroine. The narrative is mostly in first person from Paiges’s perspective, and author McLeod skillfully gives her a voice that is easy to connect with and comfortable. With the cover of Barely Dead reading that it is A Paige Harrington Mystery, it leaves hope that she will appear to lead in another mystery novel.