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As much a sweet and immersive love-story as it is a cracking-good small(ish)-town detective story, this book got under my skin and into my heart in a way that was totally unexpected.

Ben Ames, our first-person POV narrator, is an ex-cop, now running a one-man PI agency in Calgary, Alberta. Ben is a wonderful mix of dark-humor, wronged and vulnerable school-of-hard-knocks survivor, and practical almost-stoic working man (with just the tiniest edges of his internal chaos showing).

Jesse Serik, Ben’s long-ago ex-boyfriend, (and the definitive breaker of his heart), is now Jack Lowe, a bad-boy-beautiful B-list rock star, whose fame, fortune and raucous lifestyle may or may not be everything it appears.

When Ben, hired to investigate the disappearance of Kimberly Moy, a nineteen-year-old more-rockabilly-than-goth college student, meets Jesse, in town for a concert, their individual stories – and that of the case to be solved – intertwine in interesting, heart-tugging and suspenseful ways.

With a mystery as intoxicatingly appealing as the best of “Jesse Stone”, (including the slobbery and oh-so-charming canine Frank), Ben and Jesse/Jack make for a magical and unusual team, – a duo that this reader, for one, was sad to leave, at the satisfying and very elegantly-crafted ending of this excellent story.

A delectable read, from start-to-finish, this book hit all the right notes, – humor, tenderness, a dark and twisted puzzle, and characters so emotively-relatable you will find yourself waiting for a chance to visit with them again (and soon).

A great big thank you to the author and the publisher for an ARC of this book. All thoughts presented are my own.