Mini Reviews (Anne Frasier, Kristen Lepionka)

 

Summary from Goodreads:

"No one is more familiar with Savannah's dark side than homicide detective and native resident Elise Sandburg. She's been haunted for years by her own mysterious past: she was abandoned as a baby in one of the city's ancient cemeteries, and it's rumored that she is the illegitimate daughter of an infamous Savannah root doctor. The local Gullah culture of voodoo and magic is one that few outsiders can understand, least of all Elise's new partner. Now someone is terrorizing the city, creating real-life zombies by poisoning victims into a conscious paralysis that mimics death. As the chilling case unfolds, Elise is drawn back into the haunted past she's tried so hard to leave behind."

My Thoughts:

Play Dead was the perfect book to pick up when I was starting to go through a reading slump.  There is just something about Anne Frasier's books that never fails to draw me in.  I've read two other books in her Jude Fontaine mystery series (and loved them both) so was excited to give one of her other series to try.  Her books always seem to have darker elements to them which never fails to make them hard to put down.  In this book, Frasier includes voodoo elements that give the book a darker and creepier edge.  I really liked Elise as the main character.  There is just something that I enjoy about mysteries featuring strong female main characters where there is a hint of mystery to the main character.  With this book, there are questions of Elise's parentage as she was adopted as a baby and there are rumors that she is the daughter of a well known root doctor.  I also really liked the storyline featuring Elise's new partner and his past history.  This was such a fast-paced mystery because there were these other smaller side mysteries going on.  My attention was engaged the entire time and that was exactly what I needed when I had been feeling so slumpy previously.  I especially liked the ending of this book because I thought that I had it all figured out but the author managed to surprise me.  I'm really looking forward to picking up the second book in this series in the very near future!

Overall, I really enjoyed my time with this book!  I'm glad that I finally decided to dive into Frasier's backlist a bit and am really looking forward to reading that second book soon.  At this point, I basically plan on reading everything and anything that she writes because I've loved everything that I've read by her so far!  I would recommend this book to fans of atmospheric mysteries and to those readers who enjoy darker police procedurals.  Highly recommended!

Bottom Line: Another really great read by an author that is fast becoming a favorite of mine!

Disclosure:  I read this book through Kindle Unlimited.  Honest thoughts are my own.

Summary from Goodreads:

"Nobody knows what happened to Sarah Cook. The beautiful blonde teenager disappeared fifteen years ago, the same night her parents were brutally murdered in their suburban Ohio home. Her boyfriend Brad Stockton—black and from the wrong side of the tracks—was convicted of the murders and is now on death row. Though he’s maintained his innocence all along, the clock is running out. His execution is only weeks away when his devoted sister insists she spied Sarah at an area gas station. Willing to try anything, she hires PI Roxane Weary to look at the case and see if she can locate Sarah.

Brad might be in a bad way, but private investigator Roxane Weary isn’t doing so hot herself. Still reeling from the recent death of her cop father in the line of duty, her main way of dealing with her grief has been working as little and drinking as much as possible. But Roxane finds herself drawn in to the story of Sarah's vanishing act, especially when she links the disappearance to one of her father’s unsolved murder cases involving another teen girl."

My Thoughts:

I really, really enjoyed The Last Place You Look!  I love a good mystery series featuring a female lead (are you seeing a theme here?) so this series has been on my radar for awhile now.  I'm glad that I finally picked this one up because it was one that I didn't want to set down.  Sometimes I feel like you just read a book and from the very beginning know that its going to be a book that you love.  That was definitely the case for this one.  From the very beginning of this book, I was intrigued and curious about what had happened to Sarah.  Could she really be alive after so many years?  Would Roxane be able to find her if she was?  Those questions swirled in my head throughout the entire book.  And let me tell you that I didn't see the end of this book coming by a mile.  Wow!  That's all I have to say about that.  I will say that I really enjoyed Roxane as a main character.  She is struggling with the grief over her father's death and also has a lot of struggles with alcohol.  She felt like a real person that I could identify with as the reader not because I am like her but more because of her imperfections.  I understood those imperfections and the fight to get your life back under control.  I loved that Roxane never seemed to give up no matter what life was throwing at her.  I'm so eager to continue on with this series and plan on doing exactly that in the new year!

Overall, I highly recommend checking out this series if you haven't yet!  I really enjoyed my time with this one and cannot wait to see what further troubles Roxane finds herself in with future books.  The best part is I believe that I have at least three to four other books to look forward to in this series which has me excited.  I would recommend this book to fans of mysteries and suspenseful reads...especially those readers who prefer reading about a private investigator rather than from a detective's point of view.  Highly recommended!

Bottom Line:  This book is one of my favorite new to me series that I've found in 2020!

Disclosure:  I checked this book out from my local library.  Honest thoughts are my own.