66. Don't Even Breathe by Keith Houghton

listened on Audible
read by Karen Peakes
Unabridged audio (8:29)
2019 Thomas & Mercer
304 pgs.
Adult mystery
Finished 7/22/2019
Goodreads rating: 3.99 - 1561 ratings
My rating: 3 (or less)
Setting: Contemporary Orlando, FL

First line/s: "Long before she'd agreed to go on a date with him, Tyler had known he would kill Lindy Munson."

My comments: An entertaining, quick read, but nothing new.  Contemporary Orlando, Florida was given a fairly decent portrayal.  The protagonist, Maggie, was an excellent cop....and she knew it.  She was keeping secrets from the reader, which was very apparent, and I hate that.  I think it's called an "unreliable narrator."  And from her bosses she kept a few secrets about how her past and her current case were related.  Unethical much?  Her relationship with her boyfriend was sketchy, though her relationship with her partner was pretty decent.  The story was supposed to be one twist and surprise after another, but there was enough foreshadowing that you could figure most everything out before they were revealed.

Goodreads synopsis:  From the bestselling author of Crash comes a riveting thriller rife with murder, misdirection, and ghosts from the past.
          Florida homicide detective Maggie Novak has seen hundreds of brutal murder cases, but when she is called out to investigate the charred remains of a young woman, in what appears to be a Halloween prank gone wrong, she is confronted with a twenty-year-old secret. The body is formally identified as that of school counselor Dana Cullen, but a distinguishing mark makes Maggie look again. She believes it is the body of her school friend Rita, who perished in a fire twenty years ago.
          Maggie’s hunt for the truth behind the murder takes her back to a cruel high school trick she’s desperate to forget. And when another body turns up, Maggie realizes she too may be the target of a sinister plot creeping toward its final act.
          Maggie needs emotional distance to do her job, but she’s so close to this case that she can’t even breathe. Will Maggie be able to uncover the truth of who wanted Rita dead? Or will her past mistakes catch up with her first?