Review – Dead Wrong

Private Investigator Kat Justice arrived at her friend Nancy Bodig’s darkened house. After calling 911 and leaving a phone message for her former partner, Tommy, currently Mitch’s partner, she goes inside without backup and trips over her friend’s dead body. She’s jumped by Nancy’s killer, who attempts to inject her with a syringe to silence her, too—which turns out to be propofol. When Detective Mitch Elliot arrives at Nancy’s house, he phones Kat.  The call interrupts the killer, and the car chase is on with Mitch, who loses the killer at a railroad crossing.

Nancy’s twin brother, Nathan, had died two months earlier in a car accident that landed him in a ravine. Nancy accepted the ruling of no foul play until the day she decided to call his cell phone and a strange man answered. Hiring Kat to investigate her brother’s death ended in her own death and the attempted murder of Kat.

Susan Sleeman proceeds to take us on a roller coaster ride of cliff hanging danger, mounting suspense, missing ‘threat’ files, countless ‘safe house’ changes, and multiple attempts on Kat’s life.  This all transpired while they tried to ID the perpetrator and Kat was in protective custody of the detectives.  As investigators, no lead was too small, which made the story credible. The characters grow on you, especially the tensive romantic relationship between Kat and Mitch, her former crush. Kat’s independent and controlling behaviors made it difficult to keep her safe, which added even more tension to the story.

Kat’s constant worrying fit the Scripture verse used at the beginning of the story.  Worrying doesn’t add a single hour to your life.  Once confronted, she worked on relying more on the Lord through prayer, which influenced Mitch back to his faith.  The author’s use of faith in the story wasn’t pushy, but gave testimony to how one’s own faith can influence another person.

I loved the unexpected outcome!  I kind of saw it coming, yet it wasn’t what I figured at all.  Susan has again hit another winner in her Justice Agency series.  I’ll be looking forward to her next book.