Description from Goodreads:
"Detective Amanda Steele stops just inside the doorway, recognizing the victim’s face instantly. He seems so vulnerable in death; soft, human, even harmless. But she can never forget the evil he has inflicted. Her heart is hammering as she remembers her precious daughter, with her red curls and infectious laugh, and how she was lowered into that little grave…
It’s been five years since Detective Amanda Steele’s life was derailed in the path of an oncoming drunk driver. The small community of Dumfries, Virginia, may have moved on from the tragic deaths of her husband and daughter, but Amanda cannot. When the driver who killed her family is found murdered in a motel room, she can’t keep away from the case.
Fighting her sergeant to be allowed to work an investigation with such a personal connection to her, Amanda is in a race to prove that she can uncover the truth. But the more she digs into the past of the man who destroyed her future, the more shocking discoveries she makes. And when Amanda finds the link between a silver bracelet in his possession and the brutal unsolved murder of a young exotic dancer, she realizes she’s caught up in something darker than she ever imagined and suspects that more girls could be in danger.
But as Amanda edges toward the truth, she gets closer to a secret as personal as it is deadly. Amanda has stumbled upon a dangerous killer, and she must face some terrible truths in order to catch this killer – and save his next victim as she couldn’t save her own daughter…"
📚📚📚📚📚📚
I admit I don't read a lot of American crime; I've nothing against it but I just happen to prefer my crime books to be set in the UK however, this one caught my eye and I thought I'd have a bit of a change and, overall, I was very satisfied.
The blurb, as you can see, is a long one and sets the scene very well for this solid start to a new series.
Amanda is a complex character and was difficult to get to like at first but this was understandable given what she has experienced; she did grow on me at the end as she started to work through her grief and the true Amanda came out however, I admit to nearly giving up on her but glad I didn't.
As the blurb says, Amanda is investigating the murder of the man who killed her husband and daughter but can she be objective and why is she getting threatening phone calls telling her to back off? She doesn't of course, otherwise there wouldn't be a book, but this is not a straightforward murder and does it have anything to do with the murder of the man's business partner and an exotic dancer or is it just a coincidence? The closer Amanda gets to finding out, the closer she gets to discovering the answers are closer to home than she could ever imagined.
The plot was great, the pace was good and the characters were explored just enough to wet your appetite to want to get to know them more, particularly Trent, but what I felt was really well explored was the grieving process that Amanda was experiencing. I really got a sense of her total desolation and how little things triggered memories of her dead loved ones and how this impacted on her every waking minute because, let's face it, if you had lost your entire reason for being, I'm sure you'd be the same.
Like I said at the beginning, this is a solid start to a new series and I am looking forward to seeing what comes next.
👇👇👇👇👇👇
Connect with the author:
No comments:
Post a Comment