Tropical Delusions……

I was fortunate to receive this book as an Advance Reader Copy from Netgalley, in exchange for an objective review.

Colter Shaw is a bit of a loner. Raised by survivalist parents, and being an expert tracker, he spends his time driving around the country in his Winnebago RV and seeking out rewards for missing individuals as ‘work’. This time his friends have alerted him to a missing teenager, and a reward for $10,000 in Silicon Valley. Meanwhile Shaw is also looking for answers to a 15-year-old mystery. His Dad had left the family compound 15 years ago with gun in hand and was found dead at the base of a cliff. This storyline weaves itself around the main theme of the book, as you learn about Shaw’s past in bits and pieces.

Shaw thinks in percentages. As he stops by the Quick Byte internet café, he has calculated the odds at finding Sophie Mulliner alive at 40%. The café was the last place she was seen, and it is here that Shaw meets some pretty interesting people and learns all about the gaming world. A quick chat with the waitress on duty gives Shaw some clues and leads him to the area where he thinks Sophie was abducted.

As Shaw searches for Sophie, it appears as though her kidnapper is mimicking the levels of a popular computerized immersion game. As a second person goes missing and is later found dead, Shaw realizes that the theme of the game is ‘escape or die’ and that nothing is as it seems. Meanwhile, shades of the past are here in the present and Shaw finds himself in the sights of a different enemy, this one much closer to home…

I LOVE everything that Jeffrey Deaver writes, and this is no exception! Colter Shaw is a unique character – reminds me of Jack Reacher with a healthier ego – and the book sets us up for a pretty interesting series, with a lot of threads available for pulling in later novels. I can’t wait for the next installment! A fabulous debut for Colter Shaw!

I was fortunate to receive this book as an Advance Reader Copy from Netgalley, in exchange for an objective review.

This book opens as a young man is released from prison after a 10-year sentence for robbery and assault that culminated in the man’s death from a stroke. Gone, never to be found were the monetary contents of his safe. Finally free, Conor Dowling heads home where is elderly, decrepit mother lives in filth, and makes contact with his old friend Tony.

Detective Inspector Lottie Parker is getting ready to move into a new home, and her best friend and colleague Detective Sergeant Mark Boyd is assisting with the move. Meanwhile, two young girls are out on the town for some clubbing, but neither one of them makes it home. The girls are found dead several hours later with Lottie & Mark being tasked with the investigation.

Lottie’s half-sister Bernie remains institutionalized after a brutal murder spree and manages to manipulate another sibling to arrange a day pass for her. She immediately disables her sibling, escapes from his supervision, and begins to stalk Lottie and her family.

As the investigation continues, Conor’s name comes up as a potential suspect in the missing girl’s murder, and one of them had testified against him in the trial that landed him in prison. But his alibi is solid. Then, two more girls disappear…and soon, Lottie’s girls are missing as well…

This was a good book – the storylines, seeming random, kept me on my toes as I tried to ascertain who was responsible for what…I did not find any of the characters particularly likable, (Lottie needs more depth, I think) , but I suspect as I read the others in the series I’ll gain a lot more insight into who they are and what makes them tick. I absolutely believe this series would be best read in order – as a standalone, I had to make a lot of inferences as to the past events that lead to this installment – Bernie & Leo for example.

All in all, a good book, kept me turning the pages, and I was strangely disappointed that Conor wasn’t the ‘good boy done wrong’ that I thought he was… I will definitely be looking to read the remainder of this series!

I was fortunate to receive this book as an Advance Reader Copy from Netgalley, in exchange for an objective review.

Private Investigator Jessie Cole is back and this time she is tasked to find two women – one who walked out of her home thirty years ago, never to be seen again, thought to have been killed by her husband, and a second young woman who left a traumatic home as a teenager, and stands to inherit her grandmothers estate if she can be located. Jessie delegates one case to her quirky assistant Zee, while she begins the search for the long missing heiress.

Meanwhile, Jessie’s friend and local reporter Ben Morrison continues his struggle to remember who he was before a car accident took his memory from him years ago. Now married and with a young daughter, he sees and hears glimpses into the past that make him apprehensive of what he doesn’t remember, and yet desperately wanting to know…

And lastly, a young couple has been kidnapped and forced into an underground box of sorts by an unknown captor, and it will take all of their resourcefulness to gain their freedom. As time elapses they learn some surprising things about one another…
Jessie, Dee, Ben & Jess’s boyfriend Colin work to bring each case to fruition, they do so with surprising and not necessarily happy results, and the murder of a local child molester has Ben searching deep inside himself in fear of what he might find…

Another fabulous read from T. R. Ragan! I loved the interval character development of both Zee and Ben, as well as Colin’s sixth sense regarding Ben. I anxiously await the next in the series as we learn more about Zee and about who Ben really is…or was…

Great read!! Great series!!

I was fortunate to receive this book as an Advance Reader Copy from Netgalley, in exchange for an objective review.

Meghan Gerard is your typical teenager – with some disturbing medical symptoms. Mostly neuromuscular complaints – fatigue, migraine headaches, syncopal episodes – but no one can diagnose her. Meghan is the only child of Becky and Carl, and Becky will do anything – ANYTHING to keep her daughter safe and get her the care she needs.

Becky, in her younger years, lived with a very manipulative mother, named Cora. Adding to the stress is the fact that Cora is dying of cancer, and she’s 3000 miles away, leaving Becky torn between returning home to make amends, or remaining in New England with her ailing daughter.

Throughout all this is Carl, left on the back burner, and not quite convinced that Meghan is as sick as Becky thinks – at times he wonders if she’s faking things. Meanwhile Becky feels as if her husband isn’t as concerned as he should be, which causes some strain between them. And Meghan is keeping a secret of her own, straining her relationship with her parents as well.

Then, Meghan comes under the care of Drs Zach Fisher and Amanda Nash. Dr. Fisher has some suspicions about Meghan’s symptoms, but as Meghans symptoms escalate, testing comes back negative, and concern is raised over the possibility of Munchausen by proxy. Protective services become involved and Meghan is removed from Becky’s care. But Becky will do whatever it takes to get her back.

Told from the different perspectives of the varying characters, Saving Meghan is a fast paced, head -scratching, difficult-to-put-down page turner that’ll keep you up well into the night trying to guess the ending of this book…and you’ll be wrong…. A fabulous read from D.J. Palmer that will remain in your thoughts long after the last page is turned!!