Her Deadly Touch

Josie whines about her dead granny.Josie finds a body.Josie whines again about her dead granny.People vanish. Joise: “My poor dead granny!”Josie is in the morgue, sees a body and, yes, you guessed it...And so forth till the very end.(Don't get me wrong: Practically everyone from previous generations of my extended family are dead. Four during the last three years alone. I know grief but I've never wallowed in it like Josie does.)This book is a mess... - Murder by carbon monoxide poisoning which occured in about 3 ‰ (per mille!) of homicides during the 20th century according to a quick research. (I couldn't find data for the 21st century that did NOT include murder-suicides...)- A bus driver who might or might not have been tricked- Organised crime killing small-town fences for not coughing up money- An abundance of hardly-believable characters- Even harder-to-believe what-ifs - and not only hinted at but constantly repeated literal “if only, if only”s- Drugs, sex - just no rock'n'roll- Lots of plot holes and loose ends- A Josie Quinn who basically permeates between bemoaning the death of her granny and somewhat accurately working on the actual caseTwo stars out of five because despite all that I finished this turd. Blog Facebook Twitter Instagram

Josie Quinn is coming back to work after the traumatic death of her grandmother Lisette. She isn't sure she's ready to be back at work. As she stops to visit the grave of her first husband, Ray, on her way in to the office, she hears a woman screaming. Turns out that what had appeared to be a mourner kneeling at a nearby gravesite is Krystal Duncan, a woman who's been missing for several days and who is now most definitely dead. Duncan's corpse has wax coming from her mouth, which is an odd note.

Krystal was the mother of one of five children killed several years earlier in a horrific school bus accident. The bus driver was charged in their deaths, and his trial is coming up soon. Does Krystal's death have anything to do with that tragedy? When another parent of a child killed in the accident also goes missing, it's an angle that Josie has to consider.

Once again, Lisa Regan has spun a suspenseful yarn that pulled me right in and didn't let me go. Everyone in this book has secrets, and once she starts investigating, it doesn't take long for Josie to figure out that the killer has got to be someone connected with the bus accident. What secrets do they know? How do they know them? Can she figure out what secret is worth killing for before all the parents of the children who died are taken out?

Not only is Josie having to solve a challenging, emotionally charged case, she's also having to deal with her own emotions. She's struggling with grief over Lisette's death, and each crime scene brings flashbacks to the night Lisette was shot. Josie is tough, but in this book we clearly see that she isn't some crime-solving superwoman. She's human, and she hurts, and it makes her that much more of a believable, relatable character.

The story moved quickly, and it was hard for me to break away from it. I wanted desperately to see what happened next! And isn't that the hallmark of a great story? Lisa Regan has set a new standard for thrillers with Josie Quinn. Gotta read 'em all.

Disclaimer: My thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture for an advance reader copy of the book. All opinions here are mine, and I don't say nice things about books I don't actually like.