Stats for my copy: Trade paperback, Revell, 2021.
How acquired: Revell Reads Blogger Program for review.
First line: For a few hours every Saturday morning, Erin Larson could forget that evil existed.
(For Goodreads synopsis, scroll down.)
My thoughts: Another winner from Elizabeth Goddard! I don’t think she could write a bad book if she tried! This is the second book in her Rocky Mountain Courage series. We met Erin briefly in the first book, as she’s a close friend with that book’s heroine. However, Erin, a criminal psychologist, lives in Washington state. Like the previous book, the action starts almost immediately, while Erin and a friend are kayaking and nearly killed. And then she gets a phone call telling her that her mother is in the hospital after a suicide attempt. So off to Montana Erin goes. Nathan is a detective in Big Rapids, Montana. His part of the story starts in chapter two, when one minute he’s fishing with his father, who’s about to tell him some big secret, and the next minute his father’s been shot. From there the action never stops!
Nathan and Erin have history, and Nathan still smarts over Erin breaking up with him and moving away. There is a lot of internal monologuing – Ms. Goddard’s books, regardless of the plot and/or action involved, are wonderful character studies, and we really get to know both Erin and Nathan. We learn that Erin has a secret in her past that was instrumental in her decision to break it off with Nathan, but we don’t learn what that secret is until the last part of the book.
I feel like anything I say about this book is just repeating myself about the first book in the series, or any of the books in Ms. Goddard’s Uncommon Justice series. I love her writing, I love her descriptions of scenery, I love her characterization. There is a lot going on in this book, with both Nathan’s and Erin’s lives in danger every time they turn around. It seems like Nathan is a target because of whatever his father was investigating, and Erin gets pulled into it, and then suddenly it appears that Erin may be a target on her own, unrelated to Nathan and his father. In fact, the plot/subplots are a bit convoluted, and yet I had no trouble keeping up with the action and what was going on. Or rather, no more than Nathan and Erin had, because it was confusing at times, they were confused, and so we are confused along with them.
There’s plenty of suspense, and the last part of the book had me sitting up past my bedtime, eyes glued to the turning pages, happy with the resolution, but sorry to leave Nathan and Erin behind.
Synopsis from Goodreads: Criminal psychologist Erin Larson's dreams of a successful career come to a screeching halt when she nearly loses her own life in a boating accident on Puget Sound and then learns that her mother tried to commit suicide. She leaves her job as a criminal psychologist to care for her mother in Montana. At least she is able to produce her podcast, which focuses on solving missing persons cold cases.
Nathan
Campbell's father was investigating such a case when he was shot, and
now Nathan needs to enlist Erin's help to solve the case. She's good
at what she does. The only problem? She's his ex.
As the
two dig deeper, it becomes clear that they, too, are being
targeted--and that the answers to their questions are buried deep
within the past Erin struggles to explain and longs to forget.
The
race is on for the truth in this gripping and complex tale of
suspense, intrigue, and murder from USA Today bestselling author
Elizabeth Goddard.
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