[Synopsis]

Ray Courage’s wife Pam died thirteen years before in a car accident. Or did she? Ray’s world is turned upside down when he receives a series of e-mails from someone claiming to be his dead wife, accusing him of attempting to kill her and vowing revenge. Ray sets out to find the identity of the e-mailer only to discover the circumstances of his wife’s apparent death appear to be all but accidental. Soon Police Detective Carla Thurber comes to suspect Ray of killing his wife, and of a subsequent murder of Pam’s confidant. Meanwhile, a murderous predator who does not want the facts of Pam’s death to surface aims to stop Ray. In the greatest challenge of his life, Ray must outrun the police and elude those who are out to kill him as he seeks the truth about his wife’s death.

[My Review]

This is the first I’ve read from the Ray Courage mystery series,  and I am so impressed with the way he’s created such an interesting cast of characters and a great storyline that kept me wanting to read on.

This felt like a novel that I could really get stuck into (and I did!) and it had plenty of points where I found myself questioning a whole variety of characters and their motives. The characters are well-developed and convincing, even the ‘baddies’ (which so often isn’t the case in this genre), and I was rooting for Ray to clear his name and find out what actually happened to his wife. I felt for him so much, especially when he’s remembering his wife and their life together, and this made me root for him even more!

The story is really fast paced, but not ridiculously so – it moves along at just the right speed really, giving enough information to explain what’s going on without becoming too descriptive or wordy; it manages to remain packed full of action and octane without being at all trashy. Though there were some points that were a little crazy, and included lots of very American-style and phrases (it is an American novel, to be fair), this wasn’t to the point of it annoying me.

I also didn’t feel that I was at a disadvantage for not having read the first book, though there were some mentions of occurrences that I imagine might relate back to the first book so I guess if you have the opportunity to read them in order then that always makes sense!

Overall this was a really enjoyable, fun thriller that I would really recommend to anyone looking for a new Detective indie series to read!

[Rating: 4/5]

Many thanks to the author for providing a copy of this novel in return for an honest review