Toe Tag: The Legacy

Mysteries to Die For

Welcome to Mysteries to Die For and this Toe Tag.

I am TG Wolff and am here with Jack, my piano player and producer. This is normally a podcast where we combine storytelling with original music to put you at the heart of mystery, murder, and mayhem. Today is a bonus episode we call a Toe Tag. It is the first chapter from a fresh release in the mystery, crime, and thriller genre.

Today’s featured release is The Legacy by CL Tolbert. The Legacy was released from Level Best Books and is promoted by Partners In Crime Tours and is available from AMAZON LINK and other book retailers.

About CL Tolbert

https://www.cltolbert.com/

Licensed in Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi, Cynthia Tolbert retired after thirty-five years of practicing law and began writing full time. After winning the Georgia State Bar Fiction Writing Contest, she developed the winning short story into the first novel in the Thornton Mystery Series, OUT FROM SILENCE, published in 2019. Cynthia taught at Loyola Law School for several years where she directed a homeless clinic, and worked with third year law students in actual cases. All of these experiences have informed her fiction.

She is an avid reader, a mother of two, and a grandmother to three beautiful girls. She lives in Austin, TX with her husband and schnauzer, Yoda.

TG Wolff Review

The Legacy is a mystery / legal thriller. Professor Emma Thornton’s newest case is complicated. Jeremy Wilcox is accused of killing his mother, stabbing her to death. Diagnosed as schizophrenic, Jeremy is off his meds in jail, making communication difficult. He has a history of self-medicating with painkillers and escaping from the local hospital’s mental health ward. The family dynamic is dysfunctional, support is non-existent, and answers to even basic questions are not forthcoming.

Bottom line: The Legacy is for you if you like legal thrillers where it takes more than evidence to get to the truth.

Strengths of the story. This is the fourth story in the Emma Thornton series. The cast of characters are mature, each comfortable in their skin. Tolbert’s detailed and loving description of New Orleans IS a treat. I have only been a visitor to the city a handful of times but feel like she transports me onto the streets and into the culture.

Tolbert also does a very nice job of giving us a meaningful story without crossing the line into a lesson driven story. She explores the idea of and consequences of heredity. In the Wilcox storyline, it is the genetic heredity of schizophrenia and the impact it has on a leading New Orleans family. This is paralleled with Emma having to face to other legacies that hit closer to home. As her 14-yr-old twins start experimenting and rebelling, Emma has to confront their father’s legacy of alcoholism. At the same time, she realizes she had passed on traits that drive her to excel in one area, even at the cost of others. It is an excellent study and very well done.

The Legacy is listed on Amazon as a mystery and traditional detective. Those are reasonable genre descriptions. Certainly, they do not reflect the degree to which the legal case is front and center. Also, as Emma is a law professor, this is an amateur sleuth, not PI or cop detective. There are thriller elements in the resolution, which lead me to the opinion that legal thriller or legal mystery (making up my own genre here) give a more accurate impression of this story.

While this is the 4th, readers can jump in right here. There is a continuing growth arc with Emma, her new husband Ren, and Emma’s two boys, but Tolbert does a nice job of giving us what we need to know them without leaving us feeling left out. Of course, if you are one of those reader who CAN NOT NOT start at book one, by all means, pick up OUT OF SILENCE to start from the beginning.

Where the story fell short of ideal: There isn’t a lot to pick on here. Looking from the end back (as you know I like to do), the story holds up. The mystery is made up of different layers where looking at the whole implies a different story than when you take apart the individual layers. Emma is true to her character, even when its going to cause her problems. The issues related to mental health are hard for me to develop an opinion of reasonableness, as that is exactly what mental health issues are not. At the end of the book, Tolbert sites that this story was formed and informed from her experiences working pro bono on cases like this. I trust that her representation of mental health issues, while they may not be every patient’s experience, does represent actual experiences of her and her clients. I appreciated that she represented all of the characters with dignity and individuality.

Partners In Crime Tours represents a network of 300+ bloggers offering tailor-made virtual book tours and marketing options for crime, mystery and thriller writers from around the world. Founded in 2011, PICT offers virtual book tour services for well-established and best-selling authors, as well as those just starting out with their careers. PICT prides itself on its tailored packages for authors, with a personal touch from the tour coordinators. For more information, check out their website partnersincrimetours.com

Join us next week for a special holiday episode of Mysteries to Die For, Season 6, Things That Go Jack in the Night, episode 13, Who Nipped Jack Frost by me, TG Wolff. This is the last episode of the season where Jack Frost is the featured jack.