The unsolved murder of a young activist leads to the discovery of much darker crimes in New York Times bestselling author Allison Brennan’s latest compelling thriller to feature the young, edgy detective Kara Quinn and the loner FBI agent Matt Costa. This time they work to uncover possible ties to a high-stakes cartel in the Southwest desert.

Something mysterious is killing the wildlife in the mountains just south of Tucson. When a college intern turned activist sets out to collect her own evidence, she, too, ends up dead. Local law enforcement is slow to get involved. That’s when the mobile FBI unit goes undercover to infiltrate the town and its copper refinery in search of possible leads.

Quinn and Costa find themselves scouring the desolate landscape, which keeps revealing clues to something much darker—greed, child trafficking, and more death. As the body count adds up, it’s clear they have stumbled onto much more than they bargained for. Now they must figure out who is at the heart of this mayhem and stop them before more innocent lives are lost.

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Papa said that the stars were God’s glitter to make the dark not as scary.

She’d been a con artist before she was a cop, and being an undercover cop was, essentially, being a con artist, but with a badge.

Matt was certainly an alpha male trying his hardest to be a beta, but he didn’t have a sexist bone in his body. Well, maybe a couple— he was a guy, after all…

My Review:

This was a complex, multi-faceted, and intriguing tale with haunting issues and a well-crafted writing style that packed a visceral punch without being gruesome. The gripping storylines were unpredictable and needled and poked at my curiosity throughout. The characters were as interesting and complicated as the case they were working and the clever author textured them well with authentic flaws and quirks. I can’t wait to dive into the next in the series as I’m well primed for more of the same of this wily wordsmith’s work.

When Jennifer goes up to Cambridge University with her head full of the Romantic Poets, she never dreams that she will find her very own Byron. But then she meets gorgeous actor Laurie Lewis, and finds herself living a real-life love poem.

Fifteen years and two children later, Jennifer and Laurie’s relationship is starting to feel more like an epic tragedy. After a series of revelations turn her world upside down, Jennifer will do anything to keep her family together – even if it means moving hundreds of miles away to Laurie’s childhood home in Westenbury, Yorkshire.

As she reluctantly enters into village life – complete with interfering in-laws, new friends and a surprise delivery of alpacas – Jennifer is amazed to find herself feeling happy for the first time in years. But the village holds one last, devastating secret and Jennifer must decide once and for all what she wants her future to hold.

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The last time I was on stage was when I was an angel in the Reception Nativity… I was already so pissed off at not being Mary, I broke my cardboard halo, took a swing at Joseph and got really told off by the old boot in charge. If you look at photos of me on stage, I’m scowling throughout and giving everyone black looks while I refuse to sing.

Net her? I turned to look at Laurie. Had Laurie actually said net her? As if Tod Mayhew had spent hours dipping his rod into a pond of potential marriage partners and had come up with a prize catch?

‘Call him Laurie,’ I suggested. ‘Everyone else does.’ Everyone except me, who now prefers wanker, pillock, bighead…

‘Protection?’ Janice laughed hollowly. ‘Laurie couldn’t protect the skin on a rice pudding.’

My Review:

I enjoy the clever wry humor and amusing yet perceptive observations in Julie Houston’s agile storytelling. She wrangles emotive insights into her narratives that set the perfect pitch and extra oomph to her tale. This story had a unique cast of characters with real-world problems and issues, as well as significant personal foibles and pitfalls. The storylines were engaging and held my interest, even when the characters were annoyingly weak or obtuse, as we all are at times.

About the Author

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Julie Houston lives in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire where her novels are set, and her only claims to fame are that she teaches part-time at ‘Bridget Jones’ author Helen Fielding’s old junior school and her neighbor is ‘Chocolat’ author, Joanne Harris. Julie is married, with two adult children and a ridiculous Cockerpoo called Lincoln. She runs and swims because she’s been told it’s good for her, but would really prefer a glass of wine, a sun lounger, and a jolly good book – preferably with Dev Patel in attendance.

 

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‘And how old is Stefan?’ she asked. ‘Forty-five,’ said Jackie proudly. ‘Recently divorced. As fit as a butcher’s dog with a bone to match.’

Rogues and charlatans are all I seem to attract these days. And nobody wants a decrepit old woman with the memory of a stunned goldfish. I’m better off alone.

Zara was the last person she expected to see on her doorstep. She was standing there dressed to the nines and inspecting her finger as if by pressing the doorbell she may have picked up a communicable disease.

‘Lad? He’s an adult– that makes him fair game,’ said Jackie, her words a little slurred. ‘You’ve got underwear older than him,’ said Pauline, who had been rather quiet. ‘It’s not my fault that Marks and Spencer’s make them to last.’ Jackie jutted out her chin.

Her hair looked like she’d backcombed it with a hedgehog and she still had a full face of make-up although it was now rather patchy and smudged, giving her a certain Dalí-esque quality.

My Review:

I enjoyed this wryly humorous women’s fiction tale. While the characters weren’t always likable, they were well-nuanced and insightfully layered with realistic complications and foibles. The writing style was delightfully detailed with sardonic observations, sparring and snappy banter, and perceptive inner musings and narratives that tickled and taunted my curiosity as well as my funny bone. I had pages of cleverly written highlighted passages and was greatly pained to narrow the list down to the handful in this review.

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There’s something about shiny things that appeals to Siobhan. Expensive jewelry, luxury lingerie, handsome men with perfect smiles. She knows they’re probably too good to be true, but she just can’t help wanting them all the same.

Is it one of those hangovers where your insides are all burny, like they’re mad at you and inflicting their punishment from the inside out?

“He cheese-grated the whole of the front of his body on the trunk of a sycamore,” AJ tells Miranda, leaning forward. “You should have seen the state of the man’s dick after that, it looked like a half-chewed stick of pepperoni.” “Salami,” Trey says sulkily. “Not pepperoni. Big salami. Girthy salami.”

I’m ninety-six, Colin. When you get to my age you don’t give enough of a shit about anything to have ‘objections.’

It makes her itch to think that she’ll never know the why behind it all. Miranda is just one of those people: she picks the label off her beer bottle, she itches mosquito bites. She can’t leave things alone.

My Review:

This tale was full of surprises. I am now totally enamored with Beth O’Leary as she is a wily minx who led me astray, and now I’m feeling an April fool. Her engaging and cleverly amusing storylines were unpredictable and expertly paced to keep my curiosity primed. I thought I had Joseph pegged, but I was so far off the mark I wasn’t even near the target. I adored these complicated characters, each was uniquely quirky, multi-layered, and well-textured. This agile storyteller has climbed to the top of my favorites list.

About the Author

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Beth O’Leary studied English at university before going into children’s publishing. She lives as close to the countryside as she can get while still being within reach of London, and wrote her first novel, The Flatshare, on her train journey to and from work.  You’ll usually find her curled up with a book, a cup of tea, and several woolly jumpers (whatever the weather).

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She adjusted her oversized black sunglasses, the ones she imagined made her look something like Audrey Hepburn but in fact made her look something like a very large hornet.

Tad used phrases like “leveraging our strategic partnerships” and wrote excitedly of his plans to target hospital advertising to “capture female patients in the 18-65 year old range.” The latter expression always made Maya picture Tad running through a field with a butterfly net, in pursuit of a panicked woman wearing no-slip socks and rolling an IV pole behind her.

What you have here at Hamilton is a group of very opinionated, very uptight parents who are trying to relive their childhoods through their kids… They want their kids’ days to be filled with unicorns and rainbows and the occasional diorama made out of a Jimmy Choo shoe box.

He was already on a toilet in one of the stalls, swinging his legs and loudly reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. “And through the red sticks forest stands, a nation, and the frogs, invisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

“You should make sure to use birth control, even while you’re nursing.” “What about avocados?” a woman with short silver hair and a red leather jacket wanted to know. “What about them?” “If you put one in before sex, it works like a diaphragm. No?” Maya stared at the woman. “No. Please don’t do that.” “Oh my God, Heather,” the woman with the baby said, her hand on her forehead. “Your vag is not for serving guacamole!”

My Review:

This was a fun and giggle-snort-worthy read and a pleasant surprise. The engaging and humorously entertaining plotlines and narratives were liberally peppered with keenly observant insights of cultural differences and pressures as well as cleverly amusing humor and snark. I savored each well-textured and brilliantly nuanced storyline; even when the characters were disappointing and annoying me with their self-involved pettiness, narrow thinking, bigotry, and obsessive social climbing. This was my first exposure to the agile storytelling of Madi Sinha and I am now a devoted acolyte of this talented wordsmith.