Detective Alicia Raymond, aka, ‘Berg’ by Vanessa Skye
(Vanessa has generously offered to give away three signed copies of The Enemy Inside, the first in the series (US). Please comment until next Tuesday, noon EST to enter).
It's time for another Wednesday Woman!
Today, Vanessa Skye gives us an analysis of the main character in her Edge of
Darkness series (crime fiction), Detective Alicia Raymond, aka, ‘Berg’.
Lets start with
an excerpt of the first book in the series, The
Enemy Inside:
‘Berg ran her hand over the spotless bathroom counter as she walked in to
undress. Cleaning was one of her favorite pastimes, and when she wasn’t
working, her weekends were a scrubbing, rubbing, and polishing frenzy.
You’ll never be clean, the shadowy voice in her
head mocked.
She shoved the thought back down as she removed her clothing. Catching
sight of her reflection in the large wall mirror perched over the sink, she
stared at the bruises running across her naked abdomen and upper thighs before
touching them in a detached way. Their purple, green, and yellow shades were
livid against her pale skin. She probed them with her strong fingers, relishing
the sudden, blunt ache for a moment. She frowned, unable to remember how they
happened—or was it that she didn’t want to?
Berg glanced in the mirror. She could appreciate that she had a certain
aesthetic charm to others, even if she couldn’t see it. Fortunately, the façade
was all people wanted to see, so they never bothered to look any deeper.
She examined her face: brown eyes, high cheekbones, and heavy, arched
brows. Running her fingers over the bump in her nose, she remembered the
beating that had caused it. One of her stepfathers had been quite willing to
use his fists against a small, defenseless little girl. She wore the bump like
a badge.
She glared at the mask in the mirror, the mask that drew the men to her,
the mask responsible for the pain. Loathing for both the men and herself rose
like bile in the back of her throat as she stared. She wanted to claw the
tissue from her bones with her fingernails, then crush the flesh in her bare
hands, and watch it drip red into the pure, white sink.’
From the outside,
many people who take Berg at face value would say she’s beautiful but ‘fucked
up’. That’s true, but it’s also an oversimplification.
Berg is strong,
but vulnerable. She’s tough, but weak. She’s caring, but emotionally shut down.
Berg’s a lot of
things, but simple is not one of them.
While she’s had a
tough childhood, and she’s been through the abuse and the foster care, it’s
made her into the woman she is. As many abuse survivors will tell you, you
become excellent at reading people—you can read the danger signs from a mile away.
This is why Berg is the amazing detective she is, this is why she gets all the
hard and cold cases, because she has a knack for finding out the truth and
getting to the crux of a crime.
And it’s because
of her past that she is driven to get justice for others. She will keep going,
past the point of no return, and long past where other detectives might give
up. She goes that extra mile, and won’t stop until she gets justice. Of course,
there is a fine line between justice and vengeance, but I leave that up to the
reader to decide.
Her job being
what is, she has many emotional landmines to navigate in daily life. Every day,
her childhood is starkly relived, and she deals with that in two ways: to
protect herself from emotions, and to feed her addiction.
Like many
survivors of a bad childhood, she anaesthetizes her pain in the only way she
can, indeed in the only way she’s been taught, and that is through promiscuity.
There is a strong gender theme through the books, that is: why women like Berg,
who are promiscuous, are judged and considered ‘sluts’, when men carrying out
the same ‘acting out’ are clapped on the back and congratulated.
There are also
strong love and hope themes throughout the series between Berg and her partner.
Berg has never been loved before, so of course once confronted with the
intensity of these emotions, she runs for her life. It’s stunning to watch Berg
come to terms with being loved, and therefore loving not only someone else, but
herself, too.
Some people may
read the series and think that Berg
goes too far to get justice, and some may think she doesn't go far enough. Berg
is all about an ‘eye for an eye’. But her partner, Jay, is far more forgiving
and happy to work within the bounds of the law, even if that means that sometimes
they don’t get the bad guy. To Berg, not getting the bad guy is intolerable.
Do you consider
people like Dexter or Lisbeth Salander (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) to be
villains? I personally don't, but others will likely disagree with this. So I
urge people to read The Enemy Inside,
Broken, and Bloodlines and judge
if they consider Berg to be a hero or a villain for themselves.
The Enemy Inside (Only 99c January 8-29!)
While exploring the darkness in others, Detective Alicia Raymond
discovers her own.
Chicago
Detective Alicia Raymond, a.k.a. Berg, medicates her deeply buried depression
and a brutal past with an obsessive desire to track down killers. Bringing
murderers to justice is the only thing in her life worth living for.
So
when she sympathizes with a vigilante who is exacting sadistic revenge, Berg
faces a perilous choice: surrender to the powerful evil inside, or finally
acknowledge the past she would rather ignore.
Like Dexter and The
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Enemy Inside challenges
the concept of justice, asks if the need for vengeance sometimes justifies
murder, and explores whether you can ever heal from a broken childhood.
The Enemy
Inside is now available in eBook and paperback on Amazon, Kobo, Book Depository, Barnes and Noble, TWCS and Booktopia.
And at Pages
& Pages in Mosman.
Broken
A
Chicago mother is murdered in a robbery gone wrong...
A teenager is raped and beaten, her life hanging by a thread...
For
Chicago Detective Alicia Raymond, a.k.a Berg, the need for justice burns deep
and fills the emptiness when therapy and relationships fall short. And while
Berg wages a life or death battle against a sociopath who is always two steps
ahead, an old adversary will stop at nothing to end her career.
As
Berg fights to prevent another murder, she will cross the line between hero and
villain—and there’s no turning back.
Broken is now
available in eBook and paperback on Amazon, Kobo, Book Depository, Barnes and Noble, TWCS and Booktopia.
And at Pages
& Pages in Mosman.
Bloodlines
Following
the acclaimed debut of The Enemy Inside and its sequel, Broken, comes the stunning
conclusion to the ‘Edge of Darkness’ series by investigative journalist Vanessa
Skye, Bloodlines.
Detective
Alicia “Berg” Raymond is lying. She’s lying to the Chicago Police Department,
to her boyfriend, Captain Jay O’Loughlin, but most of all, she is lying to
herself—about her past, her future, and her addiction.
As
Berg investigates a series of brutal rapes, she juggles finding justice for the
victims, keeping her own sordid past buried, and wrapping her damaged head
around living in a state of domestic bliss she’s certain she doesn’t deserve.
But
when enemies from the past threaten her present, she is once again vulnerable
to the demons that have plagued her. It’s only a matter of time before the lies
unravel and destroy the fairy tale she’s finally started believing.
Can
she save anyone from the lurking darkness or will her own bloodlines drag her
under—this time for good?
Bloodlines
will be released January 15, 2015, on Amazon, Kobo, Book Depository, Barnes and Noble, TWCS and Booktopia.
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