Part of Rose Gardner Mystery
First published 2015
Rose Gardner just wants a quiet Christmas. Her boyfriend Mason, an assistant DA, nearly died, and Rose bought his life with a promise to Skeeter Malcolm, the man who runs Fenton County's criminal underground. She has not told Mason what that promise cost her. Mason, for his part, is running a secret investigation he has not shared with Rose. Meanwhile Joe is trying to make sense of his sister's return after two years of unexplained absence. And Hilary is pushing Joe toward a commitment with a desperation that does not quite add up. Every person Rose trusts is holding something back. The secrets do not stay contained. They press against each other and against Rose, and the pressure builds toward something that could put her life and the lives of the people she loves in real danger. This installment in the Rose Gardner Mystery series moves between Rose, Joe, Mason, Hilary, and Skeeter, giving each character a point of view and showing exactly how much everyone is hiding from everyone else.
Genres: mystery, contemporary, adult, adult-fiction, thriller
Vibes: dark, gritty, intimate, suspenseful, tension-filled
Tropes: moral-compromise, multiple-point-of-view, secrets-and-lies, unreliable-trust
Setting: Fenton County
Period: Christmas
150 pages · Paperback · DGS
Content warnings: death, violence