Former cop Madison Harper returns to her hometown to find her son and clear her name. Her former lover has been murdered and she has inherited the house but she is distinctly unwelcome. The police are investigating the suspected suicide of a teenager at the fairground but Madison soon suspects there is a link between the murders.
Cry For Help was a totally compelling read and I am sooooo annoyed that I have missed the first in the series to feature Madison. However, this felt like the first book so I can’t imagine what was included in Shadow Falls. There were no spoilers and this first book goes straight to the top of my reading list.
Corruption is rife and Madison has no idea who she can trust. She has been in prison for years, sentenced for a murder she did not commit. Now she has teamed up with her private investigator employer Nate who was also falsely convicted. She is determined to clear her own name but this is soon surpassed by the need to protect her son. She hasn’t seen him since her conviction but he is now the lead suspect in the teen’s murder.
Most of the plot is delivered in the third person narrative in the present day. However some chapters are written from the day of Nikki’s murder so we see the build up to her final moments. The effect of this is to make us root for Madison and Nate even more as they strive to find the truth.
There are plenty of suspects and the author cleverly misdirects the reader to keep us guessing. Some of the descriptions are a little grisly but did not feel out of place due to the momentum of the plot.
Cry For Help was an excellent thriller with strong lead characters and a gripping plot. I LOVED it!
Shivering in the early morning chill, the caretaker flips the switch on the Ferris wheel and stumbles back in shock. The teenage girl’s body is slumped in a halo of pretty colored lights, long red hair spilling over her tear-stained cheeks, her eyes fixed forever on her dangling feet.
When teenager Nikki Jackson’s body is found at an amusement park, just hours after Fourth of July fireworks lit up the night sky, the Lost Creek police rule her death as suicide––a devastating final act from a girl who had lost all hope. But the absence of the knife used to make the wounds on her delicate wrists makes Detective Madison Harper think otherwise. And the partial fingerprint found on the girl’s face proves her right. Someone else was with Nikki in her final moments…
Back home in Colorado for the first time in seven years to investigate the murder of a woman with ties to the son she lost to the care system, the pressure is on for Madison to work both cases at once. Fearing the team has missed a vital clue, Madison searches the crime scene alone and finds the last thing she ever expected: a note proving the victims knew each other, and that the cases are linked. Is this a coincidence, proof a dangerous murderer is on the loose, or a trap set to lead Madison off the trail?
It’s only when Madison finally finds the knife used to harm Nikki, tucked in an almost impossible to find hiding place, that she knows she is closing in on a twisted killer. But the last person she expects to see dragged into the department in handcuffs is her own missing son…
An absolutely unputdownable crime thriller that will have you sleeping with the lights on. Addictive reading for anyone who loves Lisa Regan, Robert Dugoni and Melinda Leigh.
Author Bio:
Wendy is a former coroner’s assistant turned crime writer who lives in the UK with her husband and 3 cats.
As well as her two crime series and the YA crime novel – The Girl Who Died – Wendy has several short stories published in UK and US anthologies. She has also been shortlisted and longlisted for various competitions, including the Mslexia Novel Competition.
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