End of the year and I have treated myself to some very easy going reading. Allison Brennan is really a little bit addictive! Finishing
Best Laid Plans and continuing with the latest in the Lucy Kincaid series
No Good Deed, I realised that there will not be another one for at least half a year. I therefore looked into her Max Revere series and hit another interesting series, of which there is a novella and two novels already out. Next one in the series will be out in April next year.
No Good Deed is the ending of the story starting in
Best Laid Plans. There is suspense on every page, and when you think there can't be any more...she speeds up the action to another level before the end of the affair. It is really amazing. You just can't let the book down until you have finished. At least me. Her stories are so complex, with many characters, but she manages to keep it all together until the very end.
Starting on the Max Revere series was another hit. The first one is a novella,
Maximum Exposure, with the background story of how Maxine Revere came to be solving crimes. She is a criminal journalist and TV show hostess, trying to solve cold cases. She is tough and independent, have money in the background (that always makes it easier!) and is - sometimes - an obnoxious character. She is working with David, former military man, who is both assistant and bodyguard when needed.
What I find so addictive with this series, almost more than with the other, is that the stories are so good. I just finished
Notorious where Max goes back to her family in California to attend a funeral of a childhood friend, Kevin. Seventeen years ago, one of their friends, Lindy was brutally murdered and Kevin was accused of the murder. He was acquitted due to circumstantial evidence only, but was believed to be the culprit. He was not. Ever since his life went into a downward spiral until recently, when he started to look into who the murderer really was.
It is a fascinating story of dysfunctional families and ties, where family goes before anything else. The more Max looks into the various deaths; Lindy's, Kevins suicide (was it really suicide or murder), another murder taking place and another murder discovered, she gets more and more confused. Working with the local police is not always straightforward or easy. Looking into old family secrets is not popular either, so Max feels antagonism from all sides. Not that that would discourage her. And when she meets detective Nick Santini other feelings start surfacing.
Ms Brennan manages to provide her stories with fascinating characters, whether they are good or bad. Often, at least in the Lucy Kincaid series, we get to follow also the bad characters, so you have two storylines that in the end collides. This makes it even more suspenseful since you don't know how your 'heroes' will get away from, or avoid these evil deeds. For the Max Revere series the stories are more complex and it is difficult until the very end to find out who really is the culprit. There are several to choose from, at least in
Notorious. However, I suspected the real murderer, I had to abandon the idea along the way, just to pick it up again in the very end.
I have just started the third book in the series,
Compulsion, but really have no time to read today, plus I have a couple of other books I have to finish. But it is difficult to stay away. My fingers are itching to take up my ipad and continue reading!
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