PI Sunny Randall has often relied on the help of her best friend Spike in times of need. When Spike’s restaurant is taken over under a predatory loan agreement, Sunny has a chance to return the favor. She begins digging into the life of the hedge fund manager who screwed Spike over – surely a guy that smarmy has a skeleton or two in his closet – and soon finds this new enemy may have the backing of even badder criminals.

At the same time, Sunny’s cop contact Lee Farrell asks her to intervene with his niece, a college student who reported being the victim of a crime but seems to know more than she’s telling police. As the uncooperative young woman becomes outright hostile, Sunny runs up against a wall that she’s only more determined to scale.

Then, what appear to be two disparate cases are united by a common factor, and the picture becomes even more muddled. But one thing is clear: Sunny has been poking a hornet’s nest from two sides, and all hell is about to break loose.

As is often the case, I didn’t know anything about this author or this series when I picked the book. It was easy to listen to and reminded me a bit of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series, though not quite as humorous (but still not overly dramatic).

I’m discovering that I like mystery novels, but they aren’t my favorite for a couple of reasons:
– I don’t seem to connect as much with the characters. (A lot of that’s on me because I don’t start with book one in a series–maybe it would help if I tried that.)
– I really do prefer to emphasize relationships and character growth, but that’s not what mysteries are about. That’s not a slam to this author or the genre; it’s just my preference.

Overall, this was a fun book, but I wish I’d started with book one so I wasn’t as overwhelmed by the cast of characters. I would also like to note that as an audiobook, the overuse of the word ‘said’ and of full names stood out quite a bit. I could probably read past those in a paperback, but hearing them repeatedly got annoying.

R-rated for adult content and language. Get your copy here! 

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