Review by Booklist Review
Harvey tosses a bagful of familiar ingredients into her mix: a disgraced cop, an unsolved murder, a threatened young woman. Plus a gloomy setting that's almost another character in this case, the northern Florida swampland. When Aurora was a little girl, her mother was murdered, and the girl fled as soon as she could. The killer is still, as they say, in the wind. Aurora returns to settle her grandfather's estate and meets Officer Josh Hudson, freshly stripped of his badge and frantic to find his missing sister. All this is saved from melodrama by the author's low-key style. The faltering comes with the extra 100 pages. This is a plot-driven story, but stretching it out exposes the lack of depth in the main characters. Some salvation, however, comes with the quirky secondary characters, like the comely lass who lets the anatomy student do his homework on her leg: she has a great arcuate artery, but he's not labeling her saphenous vein until he buys her a drink. There are ups and downs here, but Harvey deserves watching.--Crinklaw, Don Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Aurora Atchison, the heroine of Harvey's predictable first novel, was found at age four on the steps of the minimart in Cooper's Bayou, Fla., in the early morning of July 17, 1989. When the strangled body of her mother turned up soon after in a nearby bayou, everyone assumed that Aurora's father killed his wife and disappeared. Aurora later left with her mother's parents to start a new life in Connecticut. Now a nurse, Aurora returns to Cooper's Bayou to settle her grandfather's estate. Treated like royalty by townspeople who all seem to have revered her mother, Aurora befriends Det. Josh Hudson, whose childhood is equally marred by tragedy (his younger brother disappeared, the apparent victim of a serial killer; his older sister ran away at 18). Seeking answers related to her mother's murder, Aurora becomes aware that the case is not as cut-and-dried as it appears. As her investigation gathers steam, sleazy Floridian characters emerge from the swamp to block her way. But with a less than original premise and a lead who's frustratingly weak-willed, this mystery fizzles. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Aurora Atkinson returns to Cooper's Bayou after her grandfather's death to settle his estate. She left Florida after her father murdered her mother, and was raised by her grandparents. Josh Hudson is an --up-and-coming star in the police department until the day he makes a deal with a suspect in a narcotics case in return for assistance finding his missing sister. That misstep gets him busted down to working in the Evidence Room. The dusty files there may hold the key to finding the person who really killed Aurora's mother. Secrets and lies will float to the surface as Josh and Aurora investigate. VERDICT This moody and atmospheric debut will thrill readers of Lori Roy, John Hart, and Steve Hamilton. [Library marketing.] © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A Florida police officer and a nurse tackle a cold case. Josh Hudson, a police officer in the sleepy town of Cooper's Bayou, lives with the horror of his brother's abduction and murder by a serial killer. Josh's father, a petty criminal, is in jail, and his sister has gone AWOL. When an undercover drug job leads him to a woman who claims to know where his sister is living, he lets her off and even pays her for information he never gets. Naturally, his actions get him into trouble, and he's taken off active duty and sent to work at the Cooper County Evidence Room. Aurora Atchison has an equally painful connection to Cooper's Bayou: when she was very young, her father murdered her mother. Wade Atchison was never caught, and Aurora's grandparents raised her in faraway Connecticut, where she became a nurse. Now that her grandfather's died and left her a house on the bayou, she returns to settle the estate. Aurora's unanswered questions about her mother's case lead her to the evidence room and Josh, who understands her need to get at the truth. The current coroner, reviewing the case, finds that Wade could not have been Raylene Atchison's killer. So Aurora and Josh look for answers in boxes of evidence and interviews with townspeople. Soon the threats Aurora begins to get make it obvious that someone thinks they're getting too close to the truth. A promising debut whose ending doesn't quite live up to the rest of the story. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
