Hello Fellow Reader!
Happy New Year! Have you made reading resolutions this year? I understand that you can keep track of your resolution on Goodreads. Are you familiar with Goodreads? It is a site where you can read and write book reviews and find new books to read. You can keep track of your book reading resolution on Goodreads. You go on and set a number of books that you would like to read for the year. Then as you go in and review books, they keep track of how many you have read. There are over 834,000 people participating in the challenge.
The latest in the Justice Series by T. E Woods is now available. The latest book is entitled Fixed in Fear. It is the fifth book in the series. The other books (in order) are The Fixer, Red Hot Fix, The Unforgivable Fix, Fixed in Blood. (Notice anything about the titles?) I have reviewed books 2-4 previously.
In this new book, we find out more about Seattle Chief Detective Mort Grant’s close friend Larry. Larry has been mentioned in other stories but this story tells us more about Larry and the mysterious death of his wife 18 years ago. Mort’s daughter Allie is also back causing problems for both the Fixer and Mort.
Larry comes to Mort when he learns that Carlton Smydon is killed in a mass murder in a sweat lodge. Carlton Smydon was the uncle of Larry’s late wife and was his last friendly connection to his wife. From the forensics, it is apparent that Carton was the intended victim of the killing. Larry asks Mort if he could take a look into the murder even though it is out of his jurisdiction.
Lydia in her role as the fixer, tracks down a man who had evaded the police and had stolen money leaving a widow destitute. In a change from her usual ways, she does not kill the man but directs the police to where he was hiding. She is not sure she is happy about this change but she recognizes it as a change for the good.
At the same time, Mort’s daughter makes an appearance on the soccer field at Mort’s granddaughter’s school. Mort and his son send the girls over to their mother. Allie makes it clear that she wants to play a role in the girl’s lives and that she misses family. Mort makes it clear that while he loves her, she will have to turn herself into the police for all her illegal activities before she will be welcomed into the family again.
Mort then asks Lydia Corriger (the Fixer) to find his daughter and find out what she is up to so he can protect his family. Lydia tracks down Allie but at the same time Allie comes to Lydia with an ultimatum.
I enjoyed the book until the end. I don’t like it when at the end of a book there is an obvious cliff hanger. I think if you have done a good job, that readers will want to read your next book without a cliffhanger. I like each book to be complete and not have a tease for the next book.
Ignoring my feeling about this, I enjoyed the book. There was some good character growth and it kept my interest.
If you have not read any of these books, I would say that I did not read the first book and was just fine reading the others. I think it might be harder as the series moves along to not have read any of them and just jump in in the middle.
If you would like to know more about the author, you can visit her web site. Unfortunately, it has not been updated very regularly.
Thanks for reading!
Carol Early Cooney 