The Crime Warp

I'm a little ashamed to admit it, but I hadn't read any Carol Wyer books till these ... and now I've discovered she has other series too! So, watch this space as no doubt there will be more Wyer reviews to follow. Published by Bookouture. The Birthday Blurb Available here One hot summer’s afternoon, five-year-old Ava Sawyer went to a party. She never came home… Two years later, Ava’s body is found and another little girl,  Audrey Briggs , goes missing. Audrey also attended  that  party … Leading the investigation is  Detective Natalie Ward . A mother of two teenagers, this case chills her to the bone, and is a disturbing reminder of the last job she worked on. One that still keeps her awake at night… Natalie soon discovers that Ava’s mother has some worrying gaps in her alibi and as she digs deeper, she’s sure Ava’s father is not telling the full story. And what did the owner of the garden centre  Elsa  see that day? Something that she’s not telling Natalie...

Well, it seems very much to me that I'm in the 'American binge read series with a touch of romance mode' during Covid Lockdown 2. I don't usually go for this sort of book, but was pleasantly surprised at how easily I was drawn into the series. Ex FBI profiler turned author, single mum with three kids and a wayward ex husband, returns to her home town of Cocoa Beach - I was hooked! I like the normalcy of a woman who has achieved and has a family and who can cope with almost anything and that's what you get with Eva Rae. She's been through a lot (check out the back story as you read) but she's still standing, still adapting and still keen to progress her writing career. However, she doesn't reckon on being yanked into crime after crime throughout the series and her turbulent lifestyle, the obstacles that she trips over, a messy romantic life, a moral code that keeps her on the straight and narrow   - none of that grinds her down.  I love her determined nat...

I love getting my teeth into a series that I can read and savour from book one right through to the last book. I love anticipating how the characters will develop and what challenges the writer will place in their way. The Mercy Kilpatrick series is a delightful detective series featuring FBI agent Mercy Kilpatrick and local sheriff Truman Daly and is set near Portland, Oregon, in a rural town.  Now, I'm all about the characters and Mercy is delightful - she's a conflicted FBI agent from a Prepper (The End Of the World As We Know It  - TEOTWAWKI) background and carries a GOOD (Get Out Of Dodge) bag with her at all times. She  is estranged from her Prepper family, who despise the police, so when in Book 1 she's forced back to her home town she is torn apart ... however, she stays there for another 6 books in the series and I  thoroughly enjoyed them all. With each book we see her evolve as a character as her romantic relationship grows and her responsibilities increas...