To Right All Wrongs

Joyce Taylor Dennis
Great Reading Books (2005)
ISBN1933538074 
Reviewed by Joanne Benham for Reader Views (6/06)

For the sake of her seven children, Laureen Sandowski endured the brutal beatings of her drunkard husband for thirty years.  A 17-year-old child, living in her native Ireland in 1919, she had fallen in love with Jock Sandowski, a handsome Polish immigrant.  Over the strong protests of her parents and her younger sister, Laureen married Jock and the two of them immigrated to America, where they ended up living in Hell’s Kitchen in New York City. 

Always a heavy drinker, Jock drifted from job to job, moving his family as often as he changed jobs.  When the boys were old enough to work, Jock “retired” and refused to work any more, while the boys were forced to turn over almost all of their meager earnings to Jock, who used it to purchase more liquor.  Many times the family went to bed hungry, but Jock always had his booze.

In 1949, Laureen and Jock’s only daughter, 23 year-old Janice, visiting her best friend Esther Mason, was shocked to find her brutally murdered in her apartment.  As she tried to help Esther, she found herself in a life and death struggle with the murderer who had been hidden in the apartment waiting for Esther’s brother.  Finally managing to escape, Janice flees for the protection of her big brothers, only to collide with Detective Brenton Cross, the policeman who will be ultimately charged with finding Esther’s killer and bringing him to justice.

This story has engaging characters, especially Laureen who struggles to keep her family together under the harshest circumstances imaginable. 

I think the book could use a bit more editing. One thing I noticed was that someone was called a ‘clean freak’ in 1949.  That is not a term that was used then.  I also found a discrepancy in the ages of Laureen’s parents.  When her parents married, Laureen’s mother was seventeen, which, assuming they waited a few years to have a child, would have made them about 37 years old when Laureen immigrated to America.  But 35 years later, her parents were in their late 80s, a discrepancy of about 16 years.  Little things like that bother me, but those two were the only major questionable items.

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