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My favorite kind of book – intense, suspenseful, an intriguing crime puzzle, and so many interesting characters – both the regulars in this outstanding detective series, and the villains, victims, red herrings, and “friendlies”, – so intertwined and carefully plotted that it requires best wits in an attempt to distinguish between them.

Book five in the Detective Gaby Darin collection, this was my first dip into this author and this series, and I will definitely be going back to read the others. Gaby is a terrific addition to my delightfully lengthening list of female-strong-and-interesting-detective-leads, and I can’t wait to round out the series with the earlier editions to see how her character has developed..

Based in North Wales, and together with her crack team of police colleagues in the Major Crimes Unit (including the very intriguing Mal, my personal favorite), as well as CSI support, family liaison and Gaby’s sort-of-boyfriend Rusty Mulholland, (the senior pathologist), and managed by her dour and thoroughly unpleasant DCI (ironically named Henry Sherlock), Gaby and her crew provide a briskly competent professional presence, mingled with just the right amount of behind-the-scenes camaraderie, family drama, social engagement, and burgeoning backstories to move the characters front-and-center stage in the novel, with plot and setting following closely behind.

Without giving that plot away (no spoilers here), it’s fair to say this book has all the elements of tragedy, mystery, and pathos – as Gaby and her team race to discover the identity of a vicious killer, and the buried lies and secrets serving the crime.

I thoroughly enjoyed this one, cover to cover, – meeting with these characters and devouring this mystery – with a definite hint of sadness as it came to a dramatic (and only very late in the book, guessed) finale.

A great big thank you to the author and the publisher for an ARC of this book.

My stop today on the #HQStories #Blogtour for #BuriedLies by @scribblerjb