Title: Her Alibi
Author: Mary L. Schmidt
Genre: Forensics Biographies & Memoirs
Book Blurb:
Visions of her Cherokee grandmother, Cordie, flashed through Mary's mind as her mother, Marguerite, informed her that her stepfather shot himself and was in the hospital. Oh no!
No! This can't be! Not after the joking around at my home last night. NO!!!! Did she use me last night? She'd never use her scapegoat child. No, she couldn't! Even Marguerite wouldn't sink that low! Or would she? Marguerite had always been abusive and vile to most people, and especially to her children and husbands, but would she shoot Harold?
Yet, here I was, and I had to tell the police that, yes, my mother was at my home all evening and into the night. How despicable that my mother connived her way into using me as her alibi.
This book is a true memoir drawing upon the locals and inspiration of the areas in which the author lives and works. Names of towns, places, facilities, and people are real except for three men. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is not coincidental in nature and places where events take place are from her life growing up.
My Review:
A dark memoir about the author’s troubled relationship with her abusive mentally mother.
Mary L. Copp Schmidt was raised in Kansas in the 1960s under the dark cloud of her mother Marguerite’s unpredictable outbursts, mood swings, and cruel behavior. Mary describes events from her childhood through adulthood with such clarity that I cringed, picturing the scenes in my head.
Her Grandma Cordie, father, stepfather, and six siblings come across as distinctive and real people who jump off the pages in tales of both good and bad memories from Mary’s past. Even more distinctive than any of the other characters is Marguerite with her flair for drama and diabolical ways. It takes an especially disturbed individual to use their own child as an alibi.
The story opens with a bang, literally, and you can’t help but get engrossed in this dark, suspenseful tale, wondering what happened leading up to the opening event. The narrative description is immersive and vivid, made all the worse knowing the author lived through it all. It becomes clear after reading this dark tale that monsters aren’t stories or figments of our imaginations. The monsters are real flesh and blood, living all around us behind closed doors.
I highly recommend this story for fans of true crime, crime fiction, and memoirs.
My Rating: 5 stars
Buy it Now:
Grab your e-copy on sale for 99 cents!
Author Biography:
Mary L. Schmidt writes under her given name and a pen name, S. Jackson, along with her husband Michael, pen name A Raymond. She grew up in a small Kansas (USA) town and has lived in more than one state since then. At this time, Mary and her husband and split their time between Kansas and Colorado where they love the mountains and off road four-wheeling. Traveling is one of their most favorite things to do and Mary always has a book to read on her Kindle. Books are one of her favorite things. When she was younger, it seemed like every time she turned around, a new library card was needed due to the current one being stamped complete. Diving into a good book made any day perfect and you would be surprised at the number of books she read over and over. As a child, Mary drew paper dolls, and clothes for them, using watercolor as her medium when painting scenes, especially flowers. She continued with art in high school exploring a wide variety of mediums such as jewelry making, ceramics, leather works, drawing, painting and more! Her creative loves to be an amateur shutterbug and she has an online art gallery. In college, she went into the sciences, and received a bachelor's degree in the Science of Nursing. Throughout her nursing career, Michael assisted Mary in her work with The American Cancer Society, March of Dimes, Cub and Boy Scouts, and sponsored children alongside his wife on music trips. Mary's nursing career was highly successful, and she hung up her nursing hat in December 2012. Mary and Michael love to read, fish, play poker, go Jeeping, and travel, especially to visit their grandson, Austin, and granddaughter, Emma.
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Reviewed by: Michelle