Laura Griffin is fast becoming one of my favorite Romantic Suspense/Thriller writers. I love her characters, and the way she writes them.
Leigh Larson is an attorney who specializes in revenge porn and stalking cases. Brandon Reynolds is a detective for Austin PD. They wind up having a case that overlaps, and the sparks that fly between the two heat up more than the case they’re working.
The story opens with a woman driving on a lonely road, and meeting with someone for a sketchy deal. It very quickly becomes a possible murder. The next day, Detective Brandon Reynolds and his partner start the missing persons case. There’s an abandoned vehicle, some blood, and no victim. One of the people the detective wants to speak with is the missing woman’s lawyer. Leigh barely remembers the interaction she’d had with the missing woman, Vanessa. But once she pulls up her notes on the interaction, it jogs her memory. She gets ahold of Detective Reynolds, and while he doesn’t seems impressed with her information, something about the case calls to Leigh. She begins to investigate on her own.
Brandon doesn’t want her anywhere near this case. She’s not a detective, in fact even though she’s the missing woman’s attorney, she’s still a civilian. And it’s getting dangerous. Leigh is attacked in her office, and someone even comes to threaten her in person. More than ever, Brandon wants her to stop digging into the case. But what Brandon admires about Leigh is her tenacity, and she is very tenacious about her client. She won’t give up, and she’s determined to figure out what happened to Vanessa. Something big changes everything.
This was a big twist I did not see coming, and it was so well done.
Leigh and Brandon are dancing around each other, and when they finally come together it’s fantastic. But their jobs tend to get in the way. Attorney client privilege prevents Leigh from sharing certain big bombshells with Brandon, and he thinks it’s a cop-out. They have to learn to draw certain boundaries between work/’home, and I loved how they handled it. This author creates excellent mysteries with competent and realistic characters. I always know I’ll get a good story with a Laura Griffin novel.
***Advance Reader Copy courtesy of Netgalley
