Nothing Else Matters

Rating:
Summary: A very imaginative series
Review: Chasen Heights Detective Sergeant Samantha Casey has been suspended from the police force due to some of the activities on her last case. Although feeling major levels of stress especially since her car was bombed in the exact manner that killed her father years ago, the half Native-American blames her spouse, fellow officer Jake Mitchell, for her being placed on suspension.

Sparrow is the superstar of hired guns. He has been hired to assassinate Reverend Everett Smith on the River Queen Casino. However, before the deadly Sparrow completes his assignment, someone else kills Smith. Sparrow soon realizes that the fee he obtained form his client is counterfeit. No one lives if they screw Sparrow. He now has a new target.

The owners of the River Queen hire Sam to prove their innocence. As she engages in a game of wits with Sparrow, Jake investigates the riverboat murder while struggling to patch up his relationship with Sam.

NOTHING ELSE MATTERS is an exciting detective story filled with mysticism, twists, turns, and red herrings that show the talent of S.D. Tooley to provide an entertaining tale. The story line is fun due to the various charcaters. Sam is a wonderful heroine who grapples with her dichotomous feelings towards her husband. Sparrow is an intriguing killing machine who brings the danger to the plot. Mystical elements fit into the tale and add to the overall enjoyment. As with WHEN THE DEAD SPEAK, NOTHING ELSE MATTERS will provide enjoyment to readers who will want more special deliveries like these from a gifted author.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: A one-of a kind crowd pleasing romantic suspense
Review: Chasen Heights Detective Sergeant Samantha Casey has been suspended from the police force due to some of the activities on her last case. Although feeling major levels of stress especially since her car was bombed in the exact manner that killed her father years ago, the half Native-American blames her spouse, fellow officer Jake Mitchell, for her being placed on suspension.

Sparrow is the superstar of hired guns. He has been hired to assassinate Reverend Everett Smith on the River Queen Casino. However, before the deadly Sparrow completes his assignment, someone else kills Smith. Sparrow soon realizes that the fee he obtained form his client is counterfeit. No one lives if they screw Sparrow. He now has a new target.

The owners of the River Queen hire Sam to prove their innocence. As she engages in a game of wits with Sparrow, Jake investigates the riverboat murder while struggling to patch up his relationship with Sam.

NOTHING ELSE MATTERS is an exciting detective story filled with mysticism, twists, turns, and red herrings that show the talent of S.D. Tooley to provide an entertaining tale. The story line is fun due to the various charcaters. Sam is a wonderful heroine who grapples with her dichotomous feelings towards her husband. Sparrow is an intriguing killing machine who brings the danger to the plot. Mystical elements fit into the tale and add to the overall enjoyment. As with WHEN THE DEAD SPEAK, NOTHING ELSE MATTERS will provide enjoyment to readers who will want more special deliveries like these from a gifted author.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Extraordinary Characters
Review: NOTHING ELSE MATTERS (A SAM CASEY MYSTERY) S.D. Tooley Full Moon Publishing - April 2000 ISBN: 0966602129 - H.C. Mystery / P.I.

NOTHING ELSE MATTERS is the second SAM CASEY MYSTERY; the first was WHEN THE DEAD SPEAK.

Sam Casey is back again, and this time she is suspended from the force, married to Jake Mitchell, pregnant, and not ready just yet to tell Jake the news as she blames him for her suspension. This book starts off where the last one left off and goes over things of importance from WHEN THE DEAD SPEAK so if the reader has not read it, they will not be confused. There is a murder on the River Queen Casino. Reverend Smith was murdered and found with fifty-thousand dollars on his body. The owners of the River Queen Casino, Harold McFadden, William Bordon Sr, and William Bordon Jr, hire Sam to investigate the murder, and clear the River Queen of any wrongdoing. This means that she will be running into Jake, for he is assigned the case by the police department. While on the River Queen, Sam picks up a book of matches on the bar, and she gets chilled all over as she picks up images of the killer, she hears voices crying out and sees a vision of a tattoo of a bird and underneath it is the word "Sparrow."

NOTHING ELSE MATTERS is just as rich in details and grand writing style as WHEN THE DEAD SPEAK. The author manages to pull you into the story line so well that you want the story of Sam and her friends to keep on going. There is Tim the young computer genesis, Jackie Delaney the ex-hooker friend that has helped Sam in the past and would do anything for her friend Sam. There are so many extraordinary characters, each one well defined in their own way and fitting into the plot and just like WHEN THE DEAD SPEAK, you get more Native American Culture.

This book kept me hanging on every word till the very end. I can't wait for the next installment of Sam Casey. Keep up the great writing S.D. Tooley and bring us a lot more Sam Casey Mysteries.

Pam Stone

Rating:
Summary: Unusual plotting, terrifically suspenseful tale.
Review: Nothing Else Matters by S.D. Tooley blends romance, suspense and a touch of Native American culture with flair. With a fast paced plot and richly developed characters, this tale of suspense will hook its reader through the last page. The man has no true identity except the bird tattoo on the back of his left hand and the label Sparrow. A hired gun, he shows up at the River Queen Casino prepared for a hit. But someone else beats him to the murder of Reverend Everett Smith. The Reverend is carrying $50,000 in counterfeit money and Sparrow wants answers. He won't be anyone's fall guy. A rookie cop is dead and Detective Sergeant Samantha Casey is the prime suspect for the killing. Never mind the cop's neck was broken before three bullet's from Sam's gun entered his body. And never mind that she says she didn't pull the trigger. Suspended from the force, Sam seeks answers to the young cop's death before she has to have Jake's baby in prison. But when she goes to headquarters to submit her statement, she finds herself in the interrogation room being set up for Chief of Police Connelley's death as well. Jake: the father of her child and the man Sam blames for her suspension. Of course it doesn't help that this man she's secretly married to has been promoted and has taken her position on the force. Nor does it help that she blames him for keeping information from her on her father's death. With personal relationship and work on a course from hell, Sam needs answers fast. When the owners of the River Queen Casino want to hire her to investigate the murder of Reverend Smith, Sam steps up to the plate. Using the unusual gift of psychometry, or the ability to gather information from the auras surrounding objects, Sam gathers information the cops can't possibly suspect. By picking up a glass he held, for example, Sam sees Sparrow's left tattooed hand, and the game is on. Sam's extraordinary psychic gift provides an unusual inroad for solving crime, making Nothing Else Matters a terrific read. Furthermore, the characterization and the depth of complexity of the man known only as Sparrow is not only stark and brutal, but also heart wrenching. My sincere compliments to the author of this masterpiece. If you're searching for a strong female character, unusual plotting, and a terrifically suspenseful tale, Nothing Else Matters is a must read.

Cindy Penn Reviewer

Rating:
Summary: All elements combine to create a great read!
Review: Nothing Else Matters is the second Sam Casey series, written by the somewhat mysterious S.D. Tooley. Sam Casey is a Detective Sergeant with many unique qualities: she is beautiful, stubborn, independently wealthy, and is able to speak to the dead. She is also in trouble with her own department and is married to a fellow cop. She thinks her husband is responsible for her suspension, so when the novel opens their relationship is strained to the breaking point. After an initial introduction to Sam and her problems, the action opens at the River Queen Casino. Reverend Everett Smith is being tracked by a hired killer known as Sparrow, who only kills targets that are part of the underbelly of society. But before Sparrow can make the hit, someone else intervenes and kills the Reverend. The owners of the casino hire Sam as a private investigator, having heard of her unusual talents. Sam begins her investigation, while at the same time dealing with yet another life-altering event; she is pregnant. She and her friend Jackie delve into the seamy side of life tracking the activities of Sparrow's contacts; at the same time dealing with visions which lead her to a confusing meeting with the man himself: "She sucked in a deep breath, as if synthetic self-control were being circulated through air ducts. 'No. Far from it, actually.' He didn't look sinister enough. Didn't look like a cross between a Mafia hit man and a deranged psycho. He looked like a former star quarterback, all-American guy, maybe a decathlon champion. A guy women had dreams about." Nothing Else Matters is a sophisticated mix of an international whodunit; a peak into Indian culture and some mysteries that go beyond the temporal; and a just plain old snuggle up and read book with entertainment savvy. S.D. Tooley keeps the reader at the edge of their seat, while stirring up primitive emotional elements that creates an additional great psychological element to the story. It is a love story at the most basic level, as well as a ghost story. All elements combine to create a great read. And just who is S.D. Tooley, anyway?

Shelly Glodowski Reviewer

Rating:
Summary: Intense!
Review: S. D. Tooley gives her readers the second installment of The Sam Casey Mysteries and what an installment it is. Having never read a Sam Casey Mystery, I expected the typical police procedural; murders occur, police work it out. Not! Ms. Tooley adds an extra touch of paranormal to this police procedural. The story picks up from the first Sam Casey Mystery, When The Dead Speak, which I recommend you read first, because both books are worthy of attention, and it will explain a lot of what's going on in Sam's life.

Detective Sergeant Sam (Samantha) is back. A lot happened to her in the first mystery, and as Sam comes home to get her bearings and face the department, she finds her mom, a Sioux medicine woman, heading home to help her people. (Reader's are updated on Sam's mother and stepfather throughout the story). Before mom heads home, she takes it upon herself to move Sam in the master bedroom and includes some of Jake Mitchell's things as well. Sam isn't so sure about Jake just yet, especially since his promotion by the untrustworthy, new police chief who doesn't like her, but her mom feels he is the one and plans to help it along. After a dinner, Sam goes with another detective to a crime scene on a floating casino. First she finds her self excluded from the information and case as detective, only to find her self dropped into the middle of it in another way. Her gift gives her the ability to see what is happening in the case without the police information about the violent killer. Sam doesn't just see the ending result of the murders, she sees how it is done and feels the suffering of the victim. It's intense, it's traumatic, and not for the faint of heart. The ending will blow you away!

Ms. Tooley has a superlative, supernatural mystery full of intense, persuasive characters in a grizzly, matchless story line. A promising series to get started on before you are left behind.

Rating:
Summary: Definitely Not a Cozy
Review: Sam Casey returns home from the sanitarium in which she has spent the last couple of months, recuperating from the terrible events at the end of the first book in the series "When the Dead Speak" Her Siouxan mother, Abby, is about to leave for the reservation, and Sam finds herself alone in their home.

The scene shifts to a hired assassin, who is arguing about his fee, and then to a riverboat casino, in which a man is waiting for a briefcase to be collected. The man is killed, but not by the assassin, who then tries to find out why this man was chosen to be murdered, who set him (The Sparrow) up, what was in the briefcase, and who is he.

Tooley shifts point of view often, and always to good effect. We go from Sam, to The Sparrow, to Abby and the politics of the reservation, to Carl, the retired FBI agent, to Tim, the high school hacker, but never get confused.

Sam, suspended from the force, hired by the owners of the riverboat, investigates. The cast of characters from the first book, are back. The action is non-stop, with some especially funny scenes in the table-dancing club, and, all the threads are twisted together at the end.

This book could have used some editorial advice. The introduction of beanie babies, with the attendant TM information, stops the action. Perhaps Sandy Tooley could have found a better way to indicate Sam's changing emotional state.

Despite that cavil, NOTHING ELSE MATTERS is still a good, fast read, and I await the next one in the series.

Rating:
Summary: Suspense and humor with a wicked twist of an ending
Review: Still mentally fragile and recovering from the betrayals Sam Casey suffered in WHEN THE DEAD SPEAK, the police sergeant must now face suspension, possible homicide charges, and a rocky personal relationship with fellow detective Jake Mitchell. This is either the worst or the best time for Casey to become distracted by a murder on a casino boat that involves a strip bar owner, CIA agents, a reverend, and a hitman. Tooley fills this mystery with lively characters, witty dialogue, and a pace that speeds up in the last half of the novel as Casey recovers some of her confidence and develops an unhealthy relationship with beanie babies. Native American culture and myths are also introduced as Casey uses the gifts from her heritage to see clues while foster mother deals with their reservation's desire for a casino. Romance, suspense, and mysticism all rolled up the lastest Sam Casey novel by Sandra Tooley.

Rating:
Summary: A yummy read with a tasty plot!
Review: The second Samantha Casey mystery that blends Native American culture with suspense and romance. A secretive hit person, code name Sparrow, is the nexus of this plot as Sam rushes to save Sparrow's newest target but someone gets there first and Sam has to keep a new client cleared of any culpability in the act. I noticed that my review of the first Sam Casey mystery is quoted on the dustjacket of this one/ How flattering! I feel much the same about this one as I did about the first. Nothing Else Matters is a yummy read with a tasty plot that has been skillfully blended to form a gourmet treat.

Leann Arndt, Reviewer

Rating:
Summary: Totally captivating
Review: This is the sequel to S.D.Tooley's WHEN THE DEAD SPEAK.These mysteries revolve around Samantha Casey,a police detective in a small Chicago Suburb.She is half Native American' has some special powersand lives with her mother, Abby Two Eagles. In the first story she is transfered to a different division and becomes partners with Jake and Frank. This story begins with Sam recovering from emotional and physical trauma. She arrives home from the hospital to discover that she has been suspended from the police department and is under investigation for her involvement in a murder. She has an unsteady relationship with Jake;she has nightmares;she has morning sickness.A murder happens in a casino; the police take her badge and will not let her investigate. She blames her problems on Jake;he is torn between his police duties and his feelings for Sam.Eventually she is asked by the casino owners to investigate.Suspense is sustained,the plot thickens,the bad guy is most intriguing. The characters are wonderful;the side issues of the problems of Native Americans are informative without lecturing.The relationship between Samantha and Jake is resolved.There is another issue of Jake's friend,Carl,a retiring FBI agent.He is dealing with his son's mia status in Vietnam. All of the side issues are resolved,with plenty of action and suspense to keep the reader up all night.The characters are vivid,colorful,and offbeat.Unforunately the main issue of Sam's suspension and legal troubles is not resolved.All other subplots are resolved nicely,with some unique twists.This reader was left with the hope that the next story will be available soon, so that I can resolve my questions.I'm looking forward to many more in the series.