17. First Sign of Danger by Kelley Armstrong

#4 Haven's Rock

listened on Libby - Borrowed from TTPL

337 pgs.

2026
Adult murder mystery
Finished 4/27/2026
Goodreads rating: 4.30
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Contemporary Yukon middle-of-nowhere wilderness

My comments: I was afraid that some of the plotting was getting too similar to others in this and the Rockton series, but this one proved me wrong.  So much "adventure in the wild" in this one, especially listening to it on audio, raising the excitement of crazy things happening in the wild outdoors-in-the-middle-of-nowhere quite a bit!  A good one.  (This one was about lost hikers and the too close-by miner's camp.)

Goodreads synopsis: Author Kelley Armstrong continues the Haven's Rock series as Casey Duncan investigates a threat to their off-the-grid Yukon town.

Detective Casey Duncan and her husband, Sheriff Eric Dalton, are entering a new chapter of life as parents to their six-month-old baby. Their family is hidden away in the sanctuary town of Haven's Rock where they can live safe and private lives. But when they encounter hikers too close to the borders of Haven's Rock, they realize they're in danger of being exposed.

When they find one of the hikers dead the next day, they realize that their paranoia was justified, but they're no closer to finding out who these people were and what they were doing in the vicinity of Haven's Rock. Only by tracing the hikers' movements, as well as examining the recent behavior of their closest neighbors, the workers of a secretive mining camp, will they be able to figure out where the threat is coming from and shut it down. Otherwise, the lives of everyone in Haven's Rock--and their safe, secure new existence--are at risk.

11. Murder on the Red River by Marcie Rendon

#1 Cash Blackbear

listened on Libby

320 pgs.

2017
Adult Mystery/Historical Fiction 
Finished 2/28/2026
Goodreads rating: 3.7
My rating: 4
Setting: 1970 1970 Fargo/MN state line

My comments: Cash is 19; smart, feisty, Native American, and really close to being an alcoholic, which is hard to watch.  She spends her life driving trucks for the local farms during the day and playing pool each night.  She drinks and smokes hard, has no friends except for the local sheriff who first met her when she was three years old, and lives a pretty solitary, empty life.  Then there's a murder nearby, and she helps the sheriff investigate.  Making it even more interesting, it's set in 1970. At only 6 hours long it was the perfect length, didn't drag on and on, and I enjoyed all the indigenous information.

Goodreads synopsis:  Set in 1970s along Red River Valley, Marcie R. Rendon's gripping new mystery follows the life of a young Ojibwe woman as she struggles to come to terms with the callous murder of a Native American stranger, bringing to life the gritty, dark reality of a flawed foster care system and the oppression of indigenous people.

Renee "Cash" Blackbear, a 19-year-old, tough-as-nails, resilient Ojibwe woman, has lived all her life in Fargo, sister city to Minnesota's Moorhead, just downriver from the Cities. Her life revolves around driving truck for local farmers, drinking beer, playing pool, smoking cigarettes, and solving criminal investigations through the power of her visions. She has one friend, Sheriff Wheaton, who's also her guardian and helped her out of the broken foster care system. Together they must work to solve a murder across cultures in a rural Midwest community layered in racism, genocide, and oppression.

10. Her Deadly Game by Robert Dugoni

#1 Keera Duggan, Seattle lawyer

listened on Audible

396 pgs.

2023
Adult Murder Mystery -  legal thriller
Finished 2/13/2026
Goodreads rating:  4.42 
My rating: 4
Setting: Contemporary Seattle

My comments: I love murder mysteries, but I'm not the biggest fan of being on the legal side of things.   Not sure why, although I used to love the John Grisham novels - from the legal side.  This was a great mystery, but the way the answers came together were a bit perplexing to me ... sort of hard to believe.  But it kept me interested and thinking, and although I disliked most of the characters, I'm happy to have read it.  I do like Robert Dugoni.

Goodreads synopsis:  A defense attorney is prepared to play. But is she a pawn in a master’s deadly match? A twisting novel of suspense by New York Times bestselling author Robert Dugoni.

Keera Duggan was building a solid reputation as a Seattle prosecutor, until her romantic relationship with a senior colleague ended badly. For the competitive former chess prodigy, returning to her family’s failing criminal defense law firm to work for her father is the best shot she has. With the right moves, she hopes to restore the family’s reputation, her relationship with her father, and her career.

Keera’s chance to play in the big leagues comes when she’s retained by Vince LaRussa, an investment adviser accused of murdering his wealthy wife. There’s little hard evidence against him, but considering the couple’s impending and potentially nasty divorce, LaRussa faces life in prison. The prosecutor is equally challenging: Miller Ambrose, Keera’s former lover, who’s eager to destroy her in court on her first homicide defense.

As Keera and her team follow the evidence, they uncover a complicated and deadly game that’s more than Keera bargained for. When shocking information turns the case upside down, Keera must decide between her duty to her client, her family’s legacy, and her own future.

3. Dead of Autumn by Sherry Knowlton

listened on Audible (purchased)

286 pgs.

2014 (first audio recorded 2020)
Adult mystery
Finished 1/14/2025
Goodreads rating: 3.97
My rating: 3.5
Setting: Contemporary Carlisle/Cumberland County, Pennsylvania

My comments: Pretty cool that this book takes place in Carlisle, PA - where I live!  There's much mention of streets, locales, and public lands that I know of quite well, with a few that I don't....so that was really fun.  The story was okay, though incredibly predictable, the protagonist is feisty but somewhat dull-witted at times, and there were a few ways that the reader read that didn't appeal to me 100%.  But I enjoyed it for the locale.  There are others to follow, so I'm hoping some of my problems with the story will smooth out as the stories continue.

Goodreads synopsis:  The Alexa Williams novel that started it all.

An ethereal blonde sprawled by a mountain stream.

Three young girls on a blanket in the woods.

Decades separate the discovery of these dead bodies, but the lesson they offer is the same. Evil can lurk much closer than you'd ever imagine.

Alexa Williams is a successful lawyer, volunteers weekly at a women’s clinic, and has a sexy weekend boyfriend—not to mention an endearing best friend in her giant English mastiff, Scout. But one autumn day, when Scout takes off into the Pennsylvania woods, Alexa discovers a nightmare she’d never imagined. From that fateful day, Alexa becomes entangled in a murder mystery—one that she tries to unravel by linking it to experiences and symbols in her own life.

Dewilla Noakes, a child of the Depression, has recently lost her mother. Her father, packs up the girls—and their attractive cousin, Winnie—and hits the road to look for a job on the east coast. Along the way, money becomes tighter, food becomes scarcer, and relationships become strained. Dewilla’s father fears he’s failing his daughters. Running out of options, he begins to consider the unthinkable to end the misery he’s brought upon his family …

Alexa soon finds herself amidst violence aimed at the clinic where she volunteers, brought on by pro-life extremists. In a bizarre turn of events, she’s almost raped, ambushed by religious zealots who wish to convert her, then taken by surprise as another romance enters her life. Plus, she seems to be seeing quite a lot of the local law enforcement these days.

No matter what else happens in her life, Alexa can’t shake feeling some sort of connection to the mysterious murder victim. She thinks back to the stories she heard as a child, about the Babes in the Woods, who were murdered close to where the victim’s body was found, wondering if that might be why she draws the connection. But when the murderer strikes again, Alexa must rely on her knowledge of local history and terrain in order to save her own life.

DEAD of AUTUMN ties together the struggles faced by females, young and old, past and present, and the degrees of power they embrace to combat their situations.

1. Nash Falls by David Baldacci

#1 of 2, follow-up to come out 4/9/2026

listened on Libby

448 pgs. (12:54)

2025
Adult Mystery/Thriller
Finished 1/3/2026  First book of the New Year!
Goodreads rating: 4.33
My rating:  4/5 (down 1/2 because of the to-be-continued ending!)
Setting: Contemporary unknown east coast city, not NYC or DC

My comments: We are left on a MAJOR cliff-hanger, which was cruelly disappointing (not knowing ahead of time), but other than that I couldn't put this book down.  I love Walter Nash....brilliant, level-headed, personable (and wealthy) family man.  But then his estranged father dies, and from the funeral on the shit hits the fan for him.  Narrators were wonderful, especially the one who read Walter Nash.  Loved, loved, loved the story and can't wait to see how it ends...in April!

Goodreads synopsis:  Walter Nash is a sensitive, intelligent and kindhearted man. He has a wife and a daughter and a very high-level position at Sybaritic Investments, where his innate skills and dogged tenacity have carried him to the top of the pyramid in his business career. Despite never going on grand adventures, and always working too many hours, he has a happy and upscale life with his family.

However, following his estranged Vietnam-veteran father’s funeral, Nash is unexpectedly approached by the FBI in the middle of the night. They have an important request: become their inside man to expose an enterprise that is laundering large sums of money through Sybaritic. At the top of this illegal operation is Victoria Steers, an international criminal mastermind that the FBI has been trying to bring down for years.

Nash has little choice but to accept the FBI’s demands and try to bring Steers and her partners to justice. But when Steers discovers that Nash is working with the FBI, she turns the tables on him in a way he never could have contemplated. And that forces Nash to take the ultimate step both to survive and to take his revenge: He must become the exact opposite of who he has always been.

And even that may not be enough.

42. Rage by Linda Castillo

#17 Kate Burkholder

listened on Libby

304 pgs.

2025
Adult Mystery
Finished 9/15/2025
Goodreads rating:  4.24
My rating: 4
Setting: contemporary Painters Mill, Ohio

Goodreads synopsis: Summer has arrived with a vengeance in Painters Mill, and a macabre discovery by three Amish children brings the quiet to a grinding halt. Chief of Police Kate Burkholder arrives on scene to find the dismembered body of 21-year-old Samuel Eicher, a local Amish man who owned a successful landscaping business. What twisted individual murdered him in such a sadistic way?

The investigation has barely begun when, miles away, a second body is found, stuffed into a barrel and dumped in a ravine. The deceased is 21-year-old Aaron Shetler, Samuel Eicher’s best friend. What could these two young Amish men have done to deserve such violent ends?

With a heat wave bearing down, Kate learns quickly that, for reasons she doesn’t understand, no one is willing to talk about what happened to the men. Just as she begins to fear the case may be hopeless, a mystery woman comes forward and reveals that fun-loving Aaron and Samuel had recently befriended some very unsavory characters―individuals who may have ties to a larger, more sinister, black market.

To solve the case, Kate must delve into the most sordid corners of her community, but when she gets too close, the killers target Kate herself. Will the secrets simmering beneath the surface of Painters Mill take another life before she can expose the truth? Or will Kate be the final victim?

34. A Cold Trail by Robert Dugoni

#7 Tracy Crosswhite

listened on Audible

355 pgs.

2020
Adult mystery/police procedural
Finished 7/21/2025
Goodreads rating: 4.37
My rating: 4.25
Setting: contemporary Cedar Grove, WA

My comments:  In this, the 7th in a series, Dugoni changes up the setting a bit (back to Tracy's hometown) and gives us yet another solid mystery.  With her 2-month old daughter, almost-too-perfect husband, a new Irish nanny, and visits from her Seattle partner, Tracy solves a cold-case murder that's bothered her for over 20 years.

Goodreads synopsis:  “Tracy Crosswhite is one of the best protagonists in the realm of crime fiction today, and there is nothing cold about A Cold Trail.” —Associated Press

In New York Times bestselling author Robert Dugoni’s riveting series, Seattle homicide detective Tracy Crosswhite returns home to a brutal murder and her haunted past.

The last time homicide detective Tracy Crosswhite was in Cedar Grove, it was to see her sister’s killer put behind bars. Now she’s returned for a respite and the chance to put her life back in order for herself, her attorney husband, Dan, and their new daughter. But tragic memories soon prove impossible to escape.

Dan is drawn into representing a local merchant whose business is jeopardized by the town’s revitalization. And Tracy is urged by the local PD to put her own skills to work on a new the brutal murder of a police officer’s wife and local reporter who was investigating a cold-case slaying of a young woman. As Tracy’s and Dan’s cases crisscross, Tracy’s trail becomes dangerous. It’s stirring up her own haunted past and a decades-old conspiracy in Cedar Grove that has erupted in murder. Getting to the truth is all that matters. But what’s Tracy willing to risk as a killer gets closer to her and threatens everyone she loves?

17. Cold as Hell by Kelley Armstrong

#3 Haven's Rock

listened on Libby

341 pgs.

2025
Adult Mystery
Finished 4-13-25
Goodreads rating: 4.29
My rating: 4
Setting: Contemporary middle-of-nowhere, Yukon, Canada

My comments: It's great to be back with Casey and crew in the middle-of-nowhere Yukon.  Casey is now eight months pregnant, in a pregnancy that has had many worries and mishaps.  Their new community is only a little over a year old and they are working hard to make it safe and happy for all, when one of the female inhabitants is kidnapped, assaulted, and rescued in the nick of time.  Shortly after that, another female disappears, found murdered in a gruesome way.  All of Haven's Rock is shocked because everyone has been vetted extremely carefully so they know that no "crazies" have been let in.  How wrong they are.  The mystery is well written, and you know that near the end of the book there's going to be a very harried birth, complete with almost tragic results.  I do enjoy and look forward to every book in the series.

Goodreads synopsis:  Haven’s Rock is a sanctuary town hidden deep in the Yukon for those who need to disappear from the regular world. Detective Casey Duncan and her husband, Sheriff Eric Dalton, are starting a family now that they’ve settled into their life here. As Casey nears the end of her pregnancy, she lets nothing, including her worried husband, stop her from investigating what happens in the forbidden forest outside the town of Haven’s Rock.

When one of the town's residents is drugged and wanders too close to the edge of town, she’s dragged into the woods kicking and screaming. She’s saved in the nick of time, but the women of the town are alarmed. Casey and Eric investigate the assault just as a snowstorm hits Haven’s Rock, covering the forest. It’s there they find a frozen body, naked in the snow. With mixed accounts of the woman's last movements, the two begin to question who they can trust—and who they can't—in their seemingly safe haven.

16. A Steep Price by Robert Dugoni

#6 Tracy Crosswhite

listened on Audible

410 pgs.

2018
Adult Police Procedural
Finished 4/10/2025
Goodreads rating: 4.38
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Contemporary Seattle

My comments: Although depressing, this mystery was super interesting and kept me on my toes, looking forward to returning each time I had to stop reading.  There are two (interesting) cases going on at once, Tracy is pregnant, and we get much more acquainted with Fazio and his wife Vera, who has just discovered she has breast cancer. 

Goodreads synopsis:  Called in to consult after a young woman disappears, Tracy Crosswhite has the uneasy feeling that this is no ordinary missing-persons case. When the body turns up in an abandoned well, Tracy’s suspicions are confirmed. Estranged from her family, the victim had balked at an arranged marriage and had planned to attend graduate school. But someone cut her dreams short.

Solving the mystery behind the murder isn’t Tracy’s only challenge. The detective is keeping a secret of her she’s pregnant. And now her biggest fear seems to be coming true when a new detective arrives to replace her. Meanwhile, Tracy’s colleague Vic Fazzio is about to take a fall after his investigation into the murder of a local community activist turns violent and leaves an invaluable witness dead.

Two careers are on the line. And when more deadly secrets emerge, jobs might not be the only things at risk.

13. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

#1 Empyrian

listened on Libby

498 pgs.  (21:22)

2023
Adult Dystopian Fantasy (now called Romantasy)
Finished 3/17/25
Goodreads rating: 4.58
My rating: 3

My comments: Well, I made it through hours and hours of what?  Arguments.  Hateful banter.  Battling tactics.  Young people dying.  And dying.  And dying.  Dragons.  I've never been a dragon fan and I'm still not.  And then after 2/3 or the book.....lust.  And more lust.  I'm certainly not opposed to lust, but when it's so much more of the story than the first 2/3 of the book it's a bit eye-rolling.  Major battles, exposed lying, lots of flying through the air and being attacked by creatures that cannot die.  And then, at the very end, switched points of view, from Violet to Zaren.  I refused to give up through all....what....20 hours? and I'm glad I completed it, but it seemed endless.  I'm not its biggest fan.  

Goodreads synopsis:  Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.

          But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them.

          With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.
          She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.
          Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.
          Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die

11. Dark Storm Rising by Linda Castillo

#15.5 Kate Burkholder

listened on Audible (purchased)

65 pgs. (1:25)

2024
Mystery Novella
Finished 3/2/25
Goodreads rating: 3.99
My rating: 2.75
Setting: Contemporary Ohio woods in winter

My comments:   Kate and Tomassetti head off for their brief honeymoon to the lakeside cabins where Kate remembers great happiness when her family vacationed there when she was 12. They are renting a cabin from an elderly Amish couple and stumble over....what else?...bad stuff happening.  It's not very exciting or gripping, you know exactly what's going to happen, and thankfully no one gets hurt or killed like in her longer novels.  It was....boring.

Goodreads synopsis:  In this short mystery from bestselling author Linda Castillo, Chief of Police Kate Burkholder must race through a dangerous blizzard to save an elderly Amish woman from a sinister foe.

Newlyweds Chief of Police Kate Burkholder and John Tomasetti are happily spending their honeymoon at a beautiful Lake Erie cabin that was once part of an historic Amish settlement. But when a violent storm suddenly erupts, Lovina Nisley, the Amish owner of the cabin, goes missing. Lovina is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, so it initially appears the elderly woman simply took the wrong path, but her disappearance takes an ominous turn when her husband reveals that a developer has been threatening them if they refuse to sell him their home. With temperatures dropping and local law enforcement unable to reach them, Kate and Tomasetti must brave the perilous weather to find her. But will they reach Lovina in time to save her life?

6. Head Cases by John McMahon

#1 FBI PAR Unit

listened on Audible (purchased)

352 pgs.

2025
Adult police procedural/series
Finished 2/2/25
Goodreads rating: 4.16
My rating: 4.25
Setting: The team is based in Florida, but this takes place more on the west coast

My comments: Gardner Camden is a savant autistic who has a photographic memory.  He was raised by a really savvy mother (who happened to be a psychiatrist) who's taught him how to survive in the real world.  He remembers everything she's taught him.  He is part of a special FBI unit called PAR, which is full of incredibly smart (and eccentric) people who have screwed up in the FBI. But boy, can they figure things out! This story looks like the first of a series.  The plot was terribly complicated and intense....and really good.

Goodreads synopsis:  Head Cases follows an enigmatic group of FBI agents as they hunt down a murderer seeking his own justice in this electrifying—and commercial—series debut.

FBI Agent Gardner Camden is an analytical genius with an affinity for puzzles. He also has a blind spot on the human side of investigations, a blindness that sometimes even includes people in his own life, like his beloved seven-year-old daughter Camila. Gardner and his squad of brilliant yet quirky agents make up the Patterns and Recognition (PAR) unit, the FBI’s hidden edge, brought in for cases that no one else can solve.

When DNA links a murder victim to a serial killer long presumed dead, the team springs into action. A second victim establishes a pattern, and the murderer begins leaving a trail of clues and riddles especially for Gardner. And while the PAR team is usually relegated to working cold cases from behind a desk, the investigation puts them on the road and into the public eye, following in the footsteps of a killer.

Along with Gardner, PAR consists of a mathematician, a weapons expert, a computer analyst, and their leader, a career agent. Each of them must use every skill they have to solve the riddle of the killer’s identity. But with the perpetrator somehow learning more and more about the team at PAR, can they protect themselves and their families…before it’s too late?

With an enigmatic case that will keep readers on the edge of their seats and a thoroughly engaging ensemble cast, John McMahon’s Head Cases is a triumph.

5. Deep into the Dark by P. J. Tracy

#1 in a series about an LA Female cop (Det. Margaret Nolan), although she wasn't really the protagonist in this first book....

listened on Audible

339 pgs.

2021
Adult murder mystery/police procedural
Finished 1/29/25
Goodreads rating: 3.77
My rating: 4
Setting: contemporary LA

My comments: Sam Easton is an Afghanistan war vet with some shattered (and recurring) memories who becomes deeply involved in a series of murders that become more and more related to him.  Tracy's writing is eloquent, I really love the way she puts words together!  Looking forward to more of her writing.

Goodreads synopsis:  Sam Easton—a true survivor—is home from Afghanistan, trying to rebuild a life in his hometown of LA. Separated from his wife, bartending and therapy sessions are what occupy his days and nights. When friend and colleague Melody Traeger is beaten by her boyfriend, she turns to Sam for help. When the boyfriend turns up dead the next day, a hard case like Sam is the perfect suspect.

But LAPD Detective Margaret Nolan, whose brother recently died serving overseas, is sympathetic to Sam's troubles, and can't quite see him as a killer. She's more interested in the secrets Melody might be keeping and the developments in another murder case on the other side of town.

3. The Big Empty by Robert Crais

#20 Elvis Cole and Joe Pike

listened on Audible - purchased

373 pgs. (8:25)

2025
Adult Contemporary Mystery/series
Finished 1/20/2025
Goodreads rating: 4.65
My rating: 5
Setting: southern California

My comments: Interesting, edge-of-your seat story that pretty much had me guessing till the end.  What else can you ask for in a murder mystery procedural?  A protagonist/PI with a sense of humor?  Check.  Interesting, well-flushed out characters?  Check that off, too.  Disturbing murders....unfortunately.  This was a good one.

Goodreads synopsis:  Traci Beller was thirteen when her father disappeared in the sleepy town of Rancha, not far from Los Angeles. The evidence says Tommy Beller abandoned his family, but Traci never believed it. The police couldn't find her dad and neither could the detectives her mother hired, but now, ten years later, Traci is a super-popular influencer with millions of followers and the money to hire a new detective: Elvis Cole.

Taking on a ten-years-cold missing person case is almost always a loser, but Elvis heads to Rancha where he learns an ex-con named Sadie Givens and her daughter, Anya, might have a line on the missing man. But when Elvis finds himself shadowed by a deadly gang of vicious criminals, the simple missing persons case becomes far more sinister and dangerous. Elvis calls in his ex-Marine friend, Joe Pike, to help, but even Pike might not be able to help.

As Elvis Cole and Joe Pike follow Tommy Beller's trail into the twisted, nightmare depths of a monstrous evil, the case flips on its head. Victims become predators, predators become prey, and when everyone is a victim, can Elvis Cole save them all?

In a case that tests Elvis Cole's loyalty to his clients and himself, the truth must come out no matter the cost. Elvis must face The Big Empty and see justice done.

82. The Waiting by Michael Connelly

Ballard & Bosch #6

listened on Audible (purchased)

407 pgs.

2024
Adult Mystery
Finished 12/8/2024
Goodreads rating: 4.47
My rating: 5
Setting: LA and vicinity, contemporary

My comments: The Cold Case Unit in LA, headed by Renee Ballard - Connelly spent the 6th in the series about this LA police detective working on three major cases.  They're all intricate and edge-of-your-seat fascinating.  Renee and Harry have become very close friends, having similar thoughts, feeling, and reactions to many things.  What was wonderfully great for me sas that Maddie Bosch is part of this book! (Why is her relationship with her father so strained? and almost secretive?)  This was a really good one!

Goodreads synopsis:  LAPD Detective Renée Ballard tracks a terrifying serial rapist whose trail has gone cold, with the help of the newest volunteer to the Open-Unsolved Unit: Patrol Officer Maddie Bosch, Harry’s daughter.

Renée Ballard and the LAPD’s Open-Unsolved Unit get a hot shot DNA connection between a recently arrested man and a serial rapist and murderer who went quiet twenty years ago. The arrested man is only twenty-three, so the genetic link must be familial. It is his father who was the Pillowcase Rapist, responsible for a five-year reign of terror in the city of angels. But when Ballard and her team move in on their suspect, they encounter a baffling web of secrets and legal hurdles.

Meanwhile, Ballard’s badge, gun, and ID are stolen—a theft she can’t report without giving her enemies in the department the ammunition they need to end her career as a detective. She works the burglary alone, but her solo mission leads her into greater danger than she anticipates. She has no choice but to go outside the department for help, and that leads her to the door of Harry Bosch.

Finally, Ballard takes on a new volunteer to the cold case unit. Bosch’s daughter Maddie wants to supplement her work as a patrol officer on the night beat by investigating cases with Ballard. But Renée soon learns that Maddie has an ulterior motive for getting access to the city’s library of lost souls.

71. The Burning by Linda Castillo

#16 Kate Burkholder

listened on Libby

320 pgs.

2024
Adult murder mystery/police procedural
Finished 8/21/24
Goodreads rating: 4.30
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Contemporary Amish country Ohio

My comments: This was a good one, although Kate was assaulted and quite badly injured numerous times and got out of it quite well each time, which is sort of hard to believe.  I guess she's more like superwoman than I had originally thought.  And in this one, the original murder was particularly grizzly in that a guy, admittedly a really, really bad guy, was burned at the stake.  It tickles me that Castillo can come up with so many plots that are quite varied from each other, as was this one.

Goodreads synopsis:  Chief of Police Kate Burkholder investigates a gruesome murder that reveals a little-known chapter of early Amish history in this new installment of the bestselling series by Linda Castillo.

Newlywed Chief of Police Kate Burkholder is awakened by an urgent midnight call summoning her to a suspicious fire in the woods. When she arrives at the scene, she discovers a charred body. According to the coroner, the deceased, an Amish man named Milan Swanz, was chained to a stake and burned alive. It is an appalling and eerily symbolic crime against an upstanding husband and father.

Kate knows all too well that the Amish prefer to handle their problems without interference from the outside world, and no one will speak about the murdered man. From what she’s able to piece together, Swanz led a deeply tr30oubled life and had recently been excommunicated. But if that’s the case, why are the Amish so reluctant to talk about him? Are they protecting the memory of one of their own? Or are they afraid of something they dare not share?

When her own brother is implicated in the case, Kate finds herself not only at odds with the Amish, the world of which she was once a part, but also the English community and her counterparts in law enforcement. The investigation takes a violent turn when Kate’s life is threatened by a mysterious stranger.

To uncover the truth about the death of Milan Swanz, Kate must dive deep into the Anabaptist culture, peering into all the dark corners of its history, only to uncover a secret legacy that shatters everything she thought she knew about the Amish themselves―and her own roots.

57. City Under One Roof by Iris Yamashita

# 1 Cara Kennedy

listened on Libby
304 pgs.

2023
Adult mystery
Finished 6/19/2024
Goodreads rating: 3.54
My rating: 3
Setting: Contemporary Alaska, winter

My comments: There were some elements of this story that drove me crazy, but the general premise AND the three voices you hear work quite well.  There's something about an entire town living in one huge building in Alaska that strikes a cord.  One of my problems is that only a handful of people were mentioned, and the idea of hundreds of people living here all together doesn't come together at all in my brain.  Our protagonist is hugely claustrophobic, so of course there are lots of scenes where this comes into account for her.  Too many.  I loved the way the three voices all intertwined, one being that of a young woman with some sort of mental disorder (schizophrenia?) - I loved being in her head and hearing what she was thinking.  The story ends with unanswered questions about Cara's past, so I definitely get the feeling there will be another book about her on the way!

Goodreads synopsis:  A stranded detective tries to solve a murder in a tiny Alaskan town where everyone lives in a single high-rise building, in this gripping debut by an Academy Award–nominated screenwriter.

When a local teenager discovers a severed hand and foot washed up on the shore of the small town of Point Mettier, Alaska, Cara Kennedy is on the case. A detective from Anchorage, she has her own motives for investigating the possible murder in this isolated place, which can be accessed only by a tunnel.

After a blizzard causes the tunnel to close indefinitely, Cara is stuck among the odd and suspicious residents of the town—all 205 of whom live in the same high-rise building and are as icy as the weather. Cara teams up with Point Mettier police officer Joe Barkowski, but before long the investigation is upended by fearsome gang members from a nearby native village.

Haunted by her past, Cara soon discovers that everyone in this town has something to hide. Will she be able to unravel their secrets before she unravels?"

54. Beyond Reach by Molly Black

#2 Reese Link, Maine cop

listened on Chirp
198 pgs.

2023
Genre/Level
Finished 6/11/24
Goodreads rating: 4.13
My rating: 3
Setting: Contemporary Maine coast

My comments: This was supposed to be set inn Maine, but it could have been set anywhere.  It kept my attention but wasn't overwhelming "good."  

Goodreads synopsis:  Small town police officer Reese Link, teaming up with her new Maine State Police partner, is assigned another explosive the second warden in the state has turned up murdered. These seem like vengeance killings, but Reese suspects something much darker, more maniacal, and she knows it will take all she has to enter this killer’s mind and outwit him before he strikes again.

Reese Link is determined to do right by her deceased older brother, to fill his shoes in the local police department, and to avenge his murder. She also wants to make her father, a local lobsterman, proud. But the local force is male, and close-knight, and Reese soon learns that being accepted won’t be so easy.

Small town life on a harbor in Maine can be rough. Winters can be cruel and stretch forever, while the working class who inhabit the harbor suffer no fools. Reese knows this town like the back of her hand—but when she teams up with a State police officer, she quickly realizes she’ll have to branch out to other areas, way out of her comfort zone. She will have to learn quickly about all regions of Maine, as she hunts deadly killers wherever they may take her.

All along, she must fight her own demons, shake off the heaviness of her childhood, the depression of this town, and ask is she good enough?

49. Lethal Beauty by Scott William Carter

#2 Karen Pantelli

listened on Audible
298 pgs.

2021
Adult Mystery series
Finished 5/28/24
Goodreads rating: 4.13
My rating: 3.5
Setting: contemporary 

My comments: There were little things that bothered me about this book, sometimes explanations went on and on and ON and other times were quickly blasted over.  And some or the characters were really hard to believe.  But it kept me entertained on the road from Chincoteague home at the end of a very fun Memorial Day weekend.

Goodreads synopsis:  Never mess with a woman with nothing left to lose.

Another state. Another city. Another dead-end job. A stellar FBI agent until tragedy set her adrift, Karen Pantelli finds herself working at a pizza joint in Billings, Montana, trying to ignore the increasing global unrest dominating the news, when three armed men walk through the door. Soon a shocking turn of events launches her on a cross-country quest for a former college classmate, an alluring but manipulative woman with just one goal in life: to marry rich. Very rich.

But what happens when this stunning beauty ensnares the richest, most powerful man of them all? He may have a singular ambition of his own … with lethal consequences for a world already in turmoil.

45. Throwaway Jane - Scott William Carter

#1 Karen Pantelli

listened on Libby
314 pgs.

2020
Adult Mystery
Finished 5/19/24
Goodreads rating: 4.32
My rating: 4.25
Setting: Contemporary Denver, Las Vegas, Phoenix

My comments: Karen Pantelli has become a drifter.  Three years after leaving the FBI with emotional scars, she finds herself busing in a bar in Denver.  This is where the wild ride begins.  She rescues a 13 year-old girls who seems terrified and won't speak, and Karen is framed to be a wanted killer.  So she and the girl, who calls herself Jane, are on the run.  They end up in Las Vegas where the story more-or-less cumulates.  Karen is from Tucson and is very protective of her bipolar sister who now lives in Phoenix with her two daughters, and their relationship comes into play in the story as well.  Very easy to listen to, good narration, good story.

Goodreads synopsis:  Former FBI agent Karen Pantelli lives by a simple philosophy: never, ever care. Three years after a tragic mistake ends her once-stellar career, she drifts from one dead-end job to another, quickly moving on when she finds herself getting too attached. A new city. A new life. A new way of forgetting and being forgotten.

Until one chilly night behind a seedy bar, when a frightened girl leaps out of the back of a speeding van.

As they end up on the run in a thrilling chase that spans half the country, Karen soon realizes it's much easier to say you don't care than to actually mean it. And that unlocking the secrets in this girl's extraordinary mind might not only save both of them, but bring down one of the most sinister organizations the world has ever known.