Part of Rose Gardner Mystery
First published 2015
Rose Gardner notices her best friend Neely Kate sinking into depression, and the usual sparkling personality is nowhere to be found. Then Rose turns up a piece of evidence suggesting her birth mother may have been connected to a crime committed twenty-five years ago. She pitches Neely Kate on helping her investigate, figuring a cold case is low-risk and exactly the kind of project that could pull her friend back to herself. It works. But every layer they peel back reveals something uglier underneath, and a case that seemed safely buried starts pushing back. On top of that, Rose has an ongoing arrangement with the man who runs the Fenton County underworld, and her role as the Lady in Black pulls her into a separate and escalating danger. Someone is targeting the people close to her, and her boyfriend, an assistant district attorney, may be next. Rose has a special talent that has helped her out of tight spots before. She is about to find out whether it is enough when two crises converge at once.
Genres: mystery, crime, contemporary, adult, adult-fiction, thriller
Vibes: dark, emotionally-complex, fast-paced, gritty, suspenseful
Tropes: amateur-detective, found-family, multiple-plot-threads, protective-love-interest
Setting: Fenton County
386 pages · ebook · DGS
Content warnings: death, murder, violence