mystery – Page 6 – Rosepoint Publishing

Two Audiobooks and an eBook – Listen While You Work #BookReviews

Mini-Reviews – Catching Up on the TBR*

I’ve solved my TBR problem by getting the audiobooks. And, no, I can’t always find a new book in an audiobook format, but you’d be amazed at what your library stocks. So, it appears I’m now listening to approximately two audiobooks to one read. It would seem I’m more active than I thought and audiobooks are ideal for getting the activities accomplished while listening to a great book—especially if it’s read by a dynamic narrator. I have a few favorites. These are a few of the latest.

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My Thoughts

Oh good grief! This one gets crazy quickly. Probably the most outrageous of the series (this is #4) and not only stretches disbelief but invents it. Quirky, nutsy fun, just go with it. Dialogue can get juicy. There is some romance for those who must have some kissy scenes. Vero takes center stage in this one and with her questionable background I’m hoping she’ll go back there (the background). Otherwise, fast read, entertaining. 3 stars

Book Details:

Genre: Cozy Mysteries
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Author: Elle Cosimano
Narrator: Angela Dawe
ASIN: B0C3NM21TR
Listening Length: 9 hrs 5 mins
Publication Date: Mar 5 2024
Amazon
Goodreads

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My Thoughts

No, it’s not an Andy Carpenter installment, my favorite paired with fav narrator Grover Gardner. This was written eight years after the start of his Carpenter series, definitely a testament to his talent in delivering a serious, thoughtful narrative with a moral punch. The protagonist, a reporter, dreams of equaling his famous father and perhaps pulling a Pulitzer. When an event happens that might get him there, however, events turn ugly, becomes sick and twisted enough to see the price may be too high. 4 stars

Book Details:

Genre: Crime Fiction
Publisher: Listen & Live Audio, Inc.
Author: David Rosenfelt
Narrator: Matt Wolfe
ASIN: B003K20QH2
Listening Length: 7 hrs 44 mins
Publication Date: Apr 30, 2010
Amazon
Goodreads

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My Thoughts

Book Five and of course it being an Underwater Investigation, I grabbed it. Usually this unit is all about evidence retrieval but in this case a seasoned diver has gone missing. Then boy does it get complicated! Well developed characters, atmospheric (are you kidding?!) and recommended. 4.5 stars

Book Details:

Genre: Heist Thrillers
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Author: Andrew Mayne
ASIN: B0C7HGT7DD
Print Length: 286 pages
Publication Date: Mar 12, 2024
Amazon
Goodreads

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Summary

Finlay Donovan Rolls the Dice just went too far. I was totally on board with installments one and two. Number three went further afield and this one off the tracks. Silly entertainment. A fan of this series might tolerate this book and hope that episode five will get back on the rails.

♥Down to the Wire demonstrates the breadth the author can write with this introspective and thoughtful twist on the old “be careful what you wish for.” I had to go back and look to confirm the author was the same David Rosenfelt who writes the wise-cracking but brilliant semi-retired dog-loving attorney. This one keeps you on the edge of your seat.

♦Dark Drive is the Amazon Editors’ pick for Best Mystery, Thriller & Suspense. The CE and I’ve read others by this author, the last being Night Owl, a techno-thriller. Always intelligent, bright, and informative, I tend more toward the underwater storylines. Definitely for the reader who enjoys action adventure.

I received a copy of these audiobooks from my local library or the author and publisher through NetGalley that in no way influenced my reviews. These are my honest thoughts.

*To Be Reviewed

The Wharton Plot: A Novel by Mariah Fredericks #BookReview #TuesdayBookBlog

Book Blurb:

Mariah Fredericks’ mesmerizing novel, The Wharton Plot, follows renowned novelist Edith Wharton in the twilight years of the Gilded Age in New York as she tracks a killer.

New York City, 1911. Edith Wharton, almost equally famed for her novels and her sharp tongue, is bone-tired of Manhattan. Finding herself at a crossroads with both her marriage and her writing, she makes the decision to leave America, her publisher, and her loveless marriage.

And then, dashing novelist David Graham Phillips—a writer with often notorious ideas about society and women’s place in it—is shot to death outside the Princeton Club. Edith herself met the man only once, when the two formed a mutual distaste over tea in the Palm Court of the Belmont hotel. When Phillips is killed, Edith’s life takes another turn. His sister is convinced Graham was killed by someone determined to stop the publication of his next book, which promised to uncover secrets that powerful people would rather stayed hidden. Though unconvinced, Edith is curious. What kind of book could push someone to kill?

Inspired by a true story, The Wharton Plot follows Edith Wharton through the fading years of the Gilded Age in a city she once loved so well, telling a taut tale of fame, love, and murder, as she becomes obsessed with solving a crime.

My Review:

You can’t fault the author for shorting the development of her protagonist, Edith Wharton. Based on a true story and character, Edith becomes blood and bone in conflict with aging when fifty in the Gilded Age was definitely over the hill. Looking at herself and not liking what she sees, in or out, she is conflicted, which is carried like a vulture on her shoulder throughout the novel.

An author, struggling to retain her status, she meets David Graham Phillips, also an author who is narcissistic, arrogant, and abrasive. She finds him most disagreeable but following his murder the following day becomes immersed in the mystery of helping to discover his killer.

While you might expect the activity to provide a distraction from her own problems—that of her marriage, her husband’s illness, and the writer’s block that began her serious introspection, she continues to wrestle with those same issues throughout the narrative. She was asked by several to read his last manuscript, which apparently included accounts best felt left unpublished by whoever took umbrage. The investigative attempts tend to be overshadowed by her personal concerns.

Okay—back in the day—she would stand out. Well-educated, attractive, successful, intelligent, and embroiled in her decaying career, she is a force to be reckoned with while striving to maintain the decorum of the day which limited the ability of a woman to exert many of her strengths. The frustration leaks from the pores of the pages.

The location and everyday life are vividly described; manners still strongly Victorian. Strong characters are well developed but I must confess to going cross-eyed at times when the pages blurred into boredom for me. I couldn’t make the plot get into second gear. It wouldn’t go faster for me. Rich in atmospherics, authentic characters and dialogue. Just moved at too slow a pace for me.

The CE read The Lindbergh Nanny back in 2022 and really enjoyed it. I received a copy of this book from our local library which in no way influenced this review. These are my honest thoughts.

Rosepoint Rating: Four Stars

Book Details:

Genre: 20^th Century Historical Fiction, Women Sleuths
Publisher: Minotaur Books
ASIN: B0C1X7W5QQ
Print Length: 285 pages
Publication Date: January 23, 2024
Source: Local Library

Title Link(s):

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

The Author: Mariah Fredericks was born and raised in New York City. She graduated from Vassar College with a degree in history. She enjoys reading and writing about dead people and how they got that way. She is the author of the Jane Prescott mystery series.

#TuesdayBookBlog

Iron Lake: Cork O’Connor Book 1 by William Kent Krueger #AudiobookReview #TBT

Book Blurb:

Anthony Award-winning author William Kent Krueger crafts this riveting tale about a small Minnesota town’s ex-sheriff who is having trouble retiring his badge. Cork O’Connor loses his job after being blamed for a tragedy on the local Anishinaabe Indian reservation. But he must set aside his personal demons when a young boy goes missing on the same day a judge commits suicide—and no one but O’Connor suspects foul play.

My Review:

Cork O’Connor is complicated and conflicted, so much going on in his life following the loss of his job as sheriff, his marriage, and the separation of his kids. Now to add fuel to the fire, a judge is found, said to have committed suicide and a young newspaper boy goes missing the same day. His mother calls Cork for help.

The judge was the last stop the boy was known to have made and to boot, the main proponent of Cork’s recall.

Boy, howdy, nothing like just heaping on the problems, huh? Cork may no longer be sheriff and is not welcome in the investigation, but couldn’t help but notice an inconsistency or two with the pronouncement of suicide. He’s pretty sure it wasn’t.

Cork wears his emotions on his sleeve right now and he’s more than a little concerned regarding the whereabouts of the boy.

It’s Minnesota.

It’s winter!

I can easily get lost in the atmospheric descriptions of the area and the people. Rugged even in good weather, the search is not easy. Lucky he has the support of the nearby tribe of the Anishinaabe. I enjoy the way the author taps into the local native lore.

The characters are well-developed and complex. Cork, a former Chicago cop has his dreams of an idyllic rural family village disintegrate before his eyes. He and his wife grow apart and he is reduced to scraping by. Being estranged from his wife, he begins to see another woman. There are twists and turns, taps into the local’s secrets.

Of course, there are technical issues, not the least of which is that he has no authority to investigate anything and we end up with a high body count—which I’m not always thrilled about. Still, I enjoy his writing style and following The River We Remember that I loved, I went looking for another book and found this series—all nineteen of them. Thought I’d start with the first. A good start.

I downloaded a copy of this audiobook from my local well-stocked library. These are my honest thoughts.

Rosepoint Publishing: Four Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Private Investigator Mysteries, Crime Thrillers
Publisher: Recorded Books
ASIN: B003NGXOQ0
Listening Length: 11 hrs 57 mins
Narrator: David Chandler
Publication Date: May 21, 2010
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Link: Iron Lake [Amazon]

The Author: Raised in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon, William Kent Krueger briefly attended Stanford University—before being kicked out for radical activities. After that, he logged timber, worked construction, tried his hand at freelance journalism, and eventually ended up researching child development at the University of Minnesota. He currently makes his living as a full-time author. He’s been married for over 40 years to a marvelous woman who is a retired attorney. He makes his home in St. Paul, a city he dearly loves.

Krueger writes a mystery series set in the north woods of Minnesota. His protagonist is Cork O’Connor, the former sheriff of Tamarack County and a man of mixed heritage—part Irish and part Ojibwe. His work has received a number of awards, including the Minnesota Book Award, the Loft-McKnight Fiction Award, the Anthony Award, the Barry Award, the Dilys Award, and the Friends of American Writers Prize. His last five novels were all New York Times bestsellers.

“Ordinary Grace,” his stand-alone novel published in 2013, received the Edgar Award, given by the Mystery Writers of America in recognition for the best novel published in that year. “Manitou Canyon,” number fifteen in his Cork O’Connor series, was released in September 2016.

Visit his website at http://www.williamkentkrueger.com.
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/williamkentkrueger
Twitter: WmKentKrueger

#ThrowbackThursday - spring

Book Tour and Giveaway: The Heaven Spot (a Novel) by Mary Frances Hill

Book Blurb

The Heaven Spot is a modern-day mystery set in Palm Beach, Florida, that depicts opioid addict Maggie Robert’s desperate attempt to come to terms with her estranged daughter, Lilly’s, murder.

When divorcée Maggie Roberts stumbles into her Virginia bookstore for the last time to close up shop, she expects the morning to be rough. The business failure is hers alone. She took all those opioids. She relapsed. She vows to stay clean and regroup. But as she packs up her books, two cops appear and inform her that her estranged daughter, Lilly, has died in West Palm Beach.

Heartbroken, Maggie heads to Florida to find out why Lilly passed and how she lived. But when she arrives in the Sunshine State, she barely recognizes the young woman in the morgue.

Maggie doubts she’ll ever forgive herself for her past mistakes with Lilly but believes that if she remains local, she can push the detective to focus on Lilly’s case and learn about her daughter. But as she connects the dots, Maggie wonders the unthinkable—could she have played a part in Lilly’s death while relapsing and blackout-high? Can she live with herself if she did?

Book Details

Book Title:  The Heaven Spot (A Novel) by Mary Frances Hill
Category:  Adult Fiction (18+), 296 pages
Genre: Thriller/Mystery
Publisher: Mary Frances Hill
Release Date:  February 2024
Content Rating: PG-13+M:

The story is about a recovering opioid addict (previously a soccer mom from Virginia) who travels to Florida to solve her estranged daughter’s (a runaway’s) murder and to learn about the life her daughter was leading.

There are curse words. The F-word is used once.
There are no sex scenes, but the mom discovers that her daughter was sexually fluid and in relationships with a woman and an older man. (separately/not a throuple)
There is no graphic violence.
The novel does deal with mature themes like addiction, suicide, and adultery as well as grief, guilt, the power of friendship, and forgiveness. However, given the protagonist’s addiction issues, it can be a bit raw at times.

My Thoughts

A thriller mystery that is heavily family drama, the storyline is unique with flawed characters and tragic loss.

Maggie Roberts is an opioid addict who saw the disappearance of her daughter Lilly three years ago. Now having been informed of her death in Palm Beach, Florida, she is obsessed with discovering why and who would have killed her.

Lilly was apparently an exceptionally talented artist. Her art was expressed in large graffiti murals placed in very unusual locations.

“The heaven spot? The most dangerous place to do her art. Risk…it’s how you gain cred from fellow writers.”

It’s a whole artistic world out there I’ve only marveled at from afar on occasion.

Lilly had created a reputation, traveled with both unique and dangerous characters, and was herself deeply flawed.

Seeking to find the truth and finding difficult answers both broke Maggie’s heart and gave her a new fierce admiration for her daughter. The realization that she’d never be able to right the wrongs now or say she was sorry redoubled her grief.

I had difficulty investing in Maggie or her daughter, a society alien to me, though the author does a terrific job of developing both her main and support characters. Tension gradually builds as Maggie gains each new nugget of information and there are twists and turns with Maggie questioning her own culpability at every turn.

It’s a rather sad story that includes triggers of murder and addiction. There were several edit misses though they did not change my investment in figuring out Lilly’s story. I was given a copy of this book for the book tour and these opinions are my own.

BUY THE BOOK:
Amazon
add to goodreads

About the Author

Mary Frances Hill - author Mary Frances Hill was born in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. The daughter of a music professor and an elementary school teacher, Mary obtained a master’s degree in counseling psychology and worked as a therapist before raising two children. Though Mary currently lives in Southern California with her Russian Blue and Scottish Straight cats, her Pyredoodle puppy, her golfer husband, and her adult son and daughter, she spent many happy vacations at her house on Palm Beach Island—the setting of her most recent novel, The Heaven Spot. Mary is an avid dog walker and home renovator and loves binge-watching true crime documentaries and mysteries. Mary’s debut novel, The Worm Man, was published in 2022.

Connect with the author: Website ~ Goodreads

Giveaway

Win a signed copy of THE HEAVEN SPOT (a novel) by Mary Frances Hill (one winner / USA and Canada only) (ends May 17)

V Williams

The Debt Collector by Steven Max Russo #BookReview #OrganizedCrimeThrillers

Rosepoint Publishing: Five Stars

Book Blurb:

Abigail Barnes is young, pretty and petite, but her looks and size can be deceiving. A tough as nails drifter who makes her living collecting outstanding debts for low-end bookies and loan sharks, Abigail arrives in Hackensack, NJ, from Baltimore, MD, and gets a job collecting for a small-time bookie, who winds up dead.

With a large Wall Street firm moving into town bringing jobs, prestige, and money, the press is soon up in arms about the killing. So the cops put the squeeze on Ronnie “Slacks” Falcone, a mobster who heads organized crime in the Jersey City area, to help find the killer.

Soon Abigail finds herself being sought by a gang of hoodlums, the mob, and the police. She knows she can’t run and she won’t turn herself in because she has a past that could send her to jail. She has little choice but to try and find out who killed the bookie – without getting killed in the process.

His Review:

Abigale Barnes is a lovely 5 ft. plus blond who turns many heads. Men wanted to protect her like a long-lost daughter. She disarms them with her smile and always presents as a very demure person. Abigale is a debt collector though; not for small bills but for large gambling debts. Most men laugh when she tells them why she is there. Her fees are not cheap, usually 35% of the amount owed plus expenses. Misjudging this person can be very painful.

Most collections are handled by big burly men who promise to break legs if they have to come back. Abigale has found that the best place to collect is at the source, the bookie’s office. Many bookies have made the mistake of underestimating her. Usually, weeks of recovery from broken bones is the reward.

I’ve found Mr. Russo’s writing style to be retro in its’ presentation and mesmerizing once engaged. I recommend his books for light hearted yet suspenseful entertainment. Enjoy! 5 stars – CE Williams

I read and reviewed The Dead Don’t Sleep back in April of 2020 and thoroughly enjoyed it. These are standalone novels that are fun, fast reads and recommended.

Many thanks to the author for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book. Any opinions expressed here are my own.

Book Details:

Genre: Organized Crime Thrillers, Murder Thrillers, Literature & Fiction
ASIN: B0CZ3XVQLM
Print Length: 197 pages
Publication Date: April 1, 2024
Source: Author

Title Link(s): The Debt Collector [Amazon-US]
Amazon-UK

The Author: Steven Max Russo (no bio listed on Amazon or Goodreads)

Christmas typewriter

The Drifter (A Peter Ash Novel Book 1) by Nick Petrie #AudiobookReview #TBT

Editors’ pick Best Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Thriller Award winner, Best First Novel, 2017

Book Blurb:

The first explosive thriller featuring Peter Ash, a veteran who finds that the demons of war aren’t easily left behind…

“Lots of characters get compared to my own Jack Reacher, but Petrie’s Peter Ash is the real deal.”—Lee Child

Peter Ash came home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with only one souvenir: what he calls his “white static,” the buzzing claustrophobia due to post-traumatic stress that has driven him to spend a year roaming in nature, sleeping under the stars.

But when a friend from the Marines commits suicide, Ash returns to civilization to help the man’s widow with some home repairs. Under her dilapidated porch, he finds more than he bargained for: the largest, ugliest, meanest dog he’s ever encountered…and a Samsonite suitcase stuffed with cash and explosives.

As Ash begins to investigate this unexpected discovery, he finds himself at the center of a plot that is far larger than he could have imagined…and it may lead straight back to the world he thought he’d left for good.

My Review:

Peter Ash is an ex-Marine of both Iraq and Afghanistan left with PTSD. He’s been living free since returning home, off the grid, answers to no one, until he learned of a fellow ex-Marine and friend who committed suicide leaving behind a wife and child.

He feels compelled to travel to his friend’s home and see if he can help out his widow on a bogus ruse. His first project is to shore up the sagging front porch and in doing so discovers a huge, slobber-dripping set of bared teeth in the head of Charles Mingus. The man manages to get the dog out from under the porch without losing a body part and in the process discovers a suitcase.

Right away I’m thoroughly impressed by Ash and love Mingus!

Peter, for the most part, comes off as wholly authentic, with repeated (almost too many) descriptions of his reaction to being enclosed (claustrophobic)—in a building in particular. So he handles the overwhelming static by staying outside as much as possible. He is competent, intelligent, considerate, and genuinely engaging.

The suitcase, however, sharply veers the well-plotted narrative in a course that quickly becomes complex. There are a number of support characters, many of whom are well developed and provide the conflict that pushes the fast pace of the storyline.

I was totally taken with the novel, particularly considering a debut, and excited to have a protagonist capable and caring in view of his combat-hardened training and experience. The reader is introduced to believable military characters, natural dialogue, and the antics of Mingus that seals the deal for what appears to be the start of a successful series (eight so far?). I’ve already lined up another—audiobook—of course.

I downloaded a copy of this audiobook from my local well-stocked library. These are my honest thoughts.

Rosepoint Publishing: Four point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Literary Fiction, Military Thrillers
Publisher: Penguin Audio
ASIN: B01995G6HM
Listening Length: 9 hrs 12 mins
Narrator: Stephen Mendel
Publication Date: January 12, 2016
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Link: The Drifter [Amazon]

The Author: Nick Petrie is the bestselling author of the award-winning Peter Ash series. A husband and father, he has worked as a roofer, carpenter, remodeling contractor, and freelance building inspector. He lives in Milwaukee. For more on Nick Petrie, including essays about writing, see his website, http://www.nickpetrie.com

The Hunter by Tana French – #AudiobookReview – #ReadingIrelandMonth24

Cal Hooper #2

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Literary Fiction

Book Blurb:

An Instant New York Times Bestseller

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2024 by the Washington Post, TIME Magazine, BBC, TODAY, Elle, CrimeReads, and more

“Hailed as the queen of Irish crime fiction, French spins a taut tale of retribution, sacrifice, and family.”—TIME

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Searcher and “one of the greatest crime novelists writing today” (Vox), a spellbinding new novel set in the Irish countryside.

It’s a blazing summer when two men arrive in a small village in the West of Ireland. One of them is coming home. Both of them are coming to get rich. One of them is coming to die.

Cal Hooper took early retirement from Chicago PD and moved to rural Ireland looking for peace. He’s found it, more or less: he’s built a relationship with a local woman, Lena, and he’s gradually turning Trey Reddy from a half-feral teenager into a good kid going good places. But then Trey’s long-absent father reappears, bringing along an English millionaire and a scheme to find gold in the townland, and suddenly everything the three of them have been building is under threat. Cal and Lena are both ready to do whatever it takes to protect Trey, but Trey doesn’t want protecting. What she wants is revenge.

From the writer who is “in a class by herself,” (The New York Times), a nuanced, atmospheric tale that explores what we’ll do for our loved ones, what we’ll do for revenge, and what we sacrifice when the two collide.

My Review:

The good ole boys are back and more than happy to render opinions, considered or not—in their own way and in their own time. Book 2 picks up with Cal and Trey as main characters, Cal still struggling with his transition from retired Chicago cop to rural village in the west of Ireland.

Trey, the teen, is still exhibiting all the anti-social, rebelliousness as before, worsening when her absentee dad reappears with an English millionaire. Trey sets her venomous eyes on revenge and proceeds to set in motion an action that, combined with a tale of gold in them thar hills, sets the village into a frenzy of conflict.

I hope the narrator gets paid by the word cause this is a long one. Probably much too long, though in all honesty, I must confess to listening to hours of spirited brogue-studded pub discussions partly just to hear the unique Irish vocabulary amid lilting sounds.

“They are not dishonest men, or anyway not what they or Trey would consider dishonest, not one of them would ever so much rob a package of mints from Noreen’s and between any of them a spit and a handshake would be as solid as a legal contract…(but) an Englishman wanting to reap from their land falls under different rules.”

In fact, most of the book is filled with dialogue and if the author is a master of thrillers, she might also be considered the mistress of dialogue. Like a senior who wanders from one subject to another, it just keeps going while gaining very little in advancement of the plot.

As the plot begins to reveal the sub-plot…wait: Is the main plot Johnny coming home and Trey taking umbrage or the supposed possibility of gold? And then, the discovery of the body. Hooboy! Now Cal gets to shine, if somewhat in the background as this would appear all Trey’s episode.

I enjoyed Cal’s part in mentoring Trey in The Searcher and appreciate he’s out of his jurisdiction, but this is where the well-plotted (if overly long) storyline begins to add a few subtle twists.

Still, those long-winded, beer-driven lively and animated discussions in the pub between all those ole boys deciding whether or not to throw in money to look for gold offered a number of humorous breaks from the more serious Trey foreground leg of the plot.

Wholly atmospheric, character-driven tale of Irish proportions. If you like to ferret out the culprit, it may not be real difficult for you, or maybe I wasn’t paying attention, but I was caught by this one. There were only so many it could have been but had my money on someone else.

I downloaded a copy of this audiobook from my local well-stocked library. These are my honest thoughts.

Rosepoint Publishing: Three Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Police Procedurals, Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Literary Fiction, Suspense
Publisher: Penguin Audio
ISBN: ‎ 0593493435
ASIN: B0C7729CF8
Listening Length: 16 hrs 24 mins
Narrator: Roger Clark
Publication Date: March 5, 2024
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Link: The Hunter [Amazon-US]
Amazon-UK
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

Add to Goodreads

The Author: Tana French is the author of In the Woods, The Likeness, Faithful Place, Broken Harbor, The Secret Place, and The Trespasser. Her books have won awards including the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity, and Barry awards, the Los Angeles Times Award for Best Mystery/Thriller, and the Irish Book Award for Crime Fiction. She lives in Dublin with her family.

Blood Mountain by Alisa Lynn Valdés – #BookReview – #TuesdayBookBlog

Jodi Luna Book 2

Book Blurb:

New Mexico game warden Jodi Luna disrupts a murderous wilderness adventure in this thrilling second installment from Alisa Lynn Valdés, New York Times bestselling author of The Dirty Girls Social Club.

Former poetry professor Jodi Luna hasn’t quite adjusted to life as a game warden. Her boss thinks she’s better with animals than humans, and the man she’s seeing wants a real relationship. Still reeling from her husband’s death, Jodi has to admit that she keeps people at a distance.

After her new friend, wealthy actress Claudia Evans, gathers with family members in the New Mexico wilderness, Jodi gets some unsettling news—that Claudia’s brother-in-law is missing. Eager to help, Jodi ventures into the wild to investigate, only to be thwarted by a blizzard that leaves the entire group stranded at a fishing lodge.

Jodi is no stranger to extreme weather, but when these reluctant adventurers start turning up mauled around the snowed-in lodge, Jodi suspects the worst: This was no bear. This was murder.

And inside the snowy confines of this rustic hideaway, everyone is fair game…

…for a killer.

My Review:

Lest you assume this might be the ole people stuck in a blizzard and start disappearing you could be right.

With a couple caveats: Jodi Luna was raised in New Mexico and has returned to try and chill both she and her daughter following the death of her husband on the East Coast where she was a professor. Her fifteen year old daughter Mila, whether or not having witnessed the death of her dad, certainly sounds like a typical teenager to me and a pretty smart one at that. So it is her daughter who saves the day.

Hoping to turn their lives around, Jodi has gotten a job as the local game warden. She loves animals and knows how to handle most people and the situations involving them.

Her new supervisor assigns her a job requested by the governor as a favor and is clearly no request. She is to proceed to a ranch compound owned by a billionaire who is hosting his annual elk hunt on his palatial estate. Teddy Evans and his wife invited his brothers and a sister, and their spouses then splits leaving the guiding up to Jodi.

Of course, the siblings feel ridiculously entitled, are obnoxious, and the men less than thrilled over having a female guide. The wife just wants Jodi to help organize and keep them from killing each other.

Oops.

The property is massive, beautiful, and there’s a treacherous storm brewing that threatens to cancel the hunt (for animals anyway). They are high up in the mountains and isolated. Jodi brought her daughter along who transitions from Godzilla to brilliant loving daughter (I had a little disbelief there).

There is a little property that straddles the ingress/egress road to the ranch compound owned by a woman been there longer than dirt and has a pet bear. She can effectively stop traffic going through but there are far more reaching reasons why the billionaire wants her property.

Jodi seems pretty intelligent but makes a few decisions that I wondered whether might have been irrational. They discovered a body that appears to have been mauled and she is taking no chances and isolates everyone. Jodi is dealing with other issues as well and her job is in jeopardy.

So many conflicts, themes of family dysfunction, entitlement, greed, and trust are interwoven into a plausible plot. The storyline keeps a good pace, pushes some disbelief, throws in twists and adds complexity. It’s entertaining. The female protagonist reminded me a little of Nevada Barr’s Anna Pigeon series, although I think Pigeon is softer around the edges than Jodi who could become grating.

I enjoyed the book, it kept my interest. Thinking I’ll go back to Book #1 and catch up, although this could very well be read as a standalone.

I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the author and publisher through @NetGalley that in no way influenced this review. These are my honest thoughts.

Rosepoint Rating: Four Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Political Thrillers, Psychological Thrillers, Police Procedurals
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
ISBN: 1662507151
ASIN: B0BTJC7JFR
Print Length: 331 pages
Publication Date: April 16, 2024
Source: Publisher and NetGalley

Title Link(s):

Amazon | Barnes & Noble

The Author: Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of many novels. Published in 11 languages and with more than 1 million books in print, Alisa was named one of the 25 Most Influential Hispanics in the United States by Time magazine; Latina magazine named her a Woman of the Year; Entertainment Weekly hailed her as a Breakout Literary Star; and Hispanic Business magazine has twice named her among the 100 Most Influential people in the nation. Alisa is a former staff writer for the Boston Globe and the Los Angeles Times, and holds a master’s in journalism from Columbia University. Alisa is also a screenwriter and TV and film producer, and a playwright and composer with a bachelor’s from Berklee College of Music.