.jpg)
Author: Karen Rose
Series: San Diego Case Files #2
Publisher: Berkley Books
Publisher: Berkley Books
Genre: Mystery & Thrillers
Format: Kindle ARC
No. of Pages: 464
Date of Publication: March 26, 2024
My Rating: 5 Stars
DESCRIPTION:
A shocking murder leaves an affluent retirement community reeling in this riveting, high-stakes second installment of the San Diego Case Files, from New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Karen Rose.
Death is not an unfamiliar visitor to Shady Oaks Retirement Village, which provides San Diego with premier elderly support from independent retiree housing to full-time hospice care. But when a resident’s body is found brutally stabbed and his apartment ransacked, it’s clear there’s someone deadly in their community. Detective Katherine “Kit” McKittrick quickly discovers that Shady Oaks is full of skeleton-riddled closets, and most tenants prefer to keep their doors firmly closed to the SDPD.
A longtime volunteer at the retirement facility, Dr. Sam Reeves honors his late grandfather’s memory by playing the piano for the residents regularly. So it shouldn’t be such a surprise when Kit crosses paths with him during her investigation, after she’d avoided the criminal psychologist—and the emotions he evokes—for the last six months.
Sam’s rapport within the retirement village proves vital to the case, and the pair find themselves working together once again—much to Kit’s dismay. But she is determined to apprehend the shadow of death lurking around Shady Oaks...and equally determined to ignore the feelings she’s developing for a certain psychologist.
MY THOUGHTS:
The San Diego Case Files series continues when a victim is found stabbed to death at the elite Shady Oaks Retirement Village. From independent living to hospice care, the residents get the best Shady Oaks can offer. It becomes clear from the very start to Detective Katherine "Kit" McKittrick that the murderer has to be someone in the community.
In a very somber setting, Kit runs into a volunteer at Shady Hokes and that is Dr. Sam Reeves, a man with who Kit has a connection, but it is one she does her best to deny. Although a busy criminal psychologist, Sam devotes as much time as possible to the residents, and has developed some very strong bonds.
While Kit begins her investigation, Sam proves to be more than instrumental when it comes to interviewing the various residents and staff. Death is never welcomed, even when natural causes is the case. But, when murder happens in a place where older residents expect nothing less than the best, it definitely leaves a bad taste. Although Same is helpful in a number of ways, his presence is problematic for Kit because of growing feelings for Sam that she is finding more and more difficult to ignore.
In usual Karen Rose style, she does an excellent job bringing both suspense and romance to her readers. The suspense carries from beginning to end and, personally, I enjoyed the slow burn of romance between Kit and Sam. I am sure that their next case will be just as intriguing as this one was, all while their personal relationship taking a turn.
Many thanks to Berkley Books and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion...
Please enjoy the following excerpt:
CHEATER by Karen Rose
Berkley Hardcover | On sale March 26, 2024
Excerpt
Chapter One
Shady Oaks Retirement Village
Scripps Ranch, San Diego, California
Monday, November 7, 11:20 a.m.
Kit McKittrick allowed herself a moment to feel pity as she stood over the body of the elderly man lying dead on his apartment floor in the Shady Oaks Retirement Village. Then she squared her shoulders and proceeded to do her job.
The mood in the dead man's living room was subdued. The ME was examining the body while CSU took photos and Latent dusted for prints, but there was little of the normal scene-of-the-crime chatter to which Kit had become accustomed in the four and a half years she'd been in Homicide.
Everyone spoke in hushed whispers, like they were in church. Because it kind of felt like they were. Haunting melancholy music from a single piano was coming from the speaker mounted on the victim's living room wall. The music wasn't loud, but it was overwhelming nonetheless. Kit wanted to turn it off, because the music was so sad that it made her chest hurt and her eyes burn.
But neither the speaker nor its volume controls had been dusted for prints, so she couldn't touch it yet. Until then, she could only square her shoulders, ignore the music, and focus on getting justice for Mr. Franklin Delano Flynn.
The cause of death of the eighty-five-year-old white male was most likely the butcher knife still embedded in his chest. But she'd learned long ago not to assume. Still, a butcher knife to the chest was never good. It was a long wound, the gash in the man's white button-up shirt extending from his sternum to his navel. Whoever had killed him had to have had a lot of strength to create such a wound.
The victim had been dead long enough for his blood to dry, both the blood that had soaked the front of his shirt and the blood that had pooled on the floor around his torso.
His eyes, filmy in death, stared sightlessly up at the ceiling. His arms lay at his sides, his hands slightly curved. Not quite flat, but not quite fists, either. It wasn't a natural pose for the victim of a homicide who'd fallen after being stabbed. She wondered if his killer had repositioned his arms.
Mr. Flynn had been a hardy man, broad-shouldered, tall, and still muscular. Not in bad shape for eighty-five, she thought. He wore dark trousers, the pockets turned out, as if he'd been searched.
His shoes were black oxfords, buffed to such a shine that she could nearly see her own reflection. She wondered if he'd come home, surprising his attacker, or if he'd welcomed his killer into his home.
His living room had been ransacked, books knocked off shelves, knickknacks strewn on the floor. The sofa cushions had been slashed open, foam stuffing on the floor as well. The man's bedroom was in a similar state. The drawers in the kitchen had been opened and emptied, their contents dumped on the counters. Flour and sugar containers had been dumped on the kitchen's tiled floor. Someone had been looking for something and had left a terrible mess.
Kit wondered if they'd found what they'd been looking for. She wondered if Mr. Flynn had fought back.
Kit crouched on the victim's right side, leaning in so that she could better examine his hands. The knuckles of his right hand were scraped and bruised, but his fingernails were what caught her attention. They were mostly gone, clipped way past the quick, down into the nail bed.
That he'd fought back was a decent assumption, then. His killer hadn't wanted any evidence to be found under the man's nails.
Excerpted from Cheater by Karen Rose Copyright © 2024 by Karen Rose. Excerpted by permission of Berkley. All rights reserved.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Internationally bestselling author Karen Rose was born and raised in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC. She met her husband, Martin, on a blind date when they were seventeen and after they both graduated from the University of Maryland, (Karen with a degree in Chemical Engineering) they moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. Karen worked as an engineer for a large consumer goods company, earning two patents, but as Karen says, “scenes were roiling in my head and I couldn't concentrate on my job so I started writing them down. I started out writing for fun, and soon found I was hooked.”
Her debut suspense novel, DON'T TELL, was released in July, 2003. Since then, she has published more than fifteen novels and two novellas. Her twenty-sixth novel, QUARTER TO MIDNIGHT, will be released in 2022.
Karen's books have appeared on the bestseller lists of the New York Times, USA Today, London's Sunday Times, and Germany's der Spiegel (#1), and the Irish Times, as well as lists in South Africa(#1) and Australia! To date, her books have been translated into more than twenty languages.
A former high school teacher of chemistry and physics, Karen lives in Florida with her husband of more than thirty years.
No comments:
Post a Comment