Publication Date: Available Now (e-book) January 2017 (Paperback) from Orenda
Source: Review Copy
Lori Anderson is as tough as they come, managing to keep her career as a fearless Florida bounty hunter separate from her role as single mother to nine-year-old Dakota, who suffers from leukaemia. But when the hospital bills start to rack up, she has no choice but to take her daughter along on a job that will make her a fast buck. And that’s when things start to go wrong. The fugitive she’s assigned to haul back to court is none other than JT, Lori’s former mentor – the man who taught her everything she knows … the man who also knows the secrets of her murky past.
Not only is JT fighting a child exploitation racket operating out of one of Florida’s biggest theme parks, Winter Wonderland, a place where ‘bad things never happen’, but he’s also mixed up with the powerful Miami Mob. With two fearsome foes on their tails, just three days to get JT back to Florida, and her daughter to protect, Lori has her work cut out for her. When they’re ambushed at a gas station, the stakes go from high to stratospheric, and things become personal.
So the adorable Steph AKA Crime Thriller Girl and a very good friend of mine (I love her) wrote this book see. And whilst I love books I’m never THAT happy when good friends write them because I don’t lie about the books and occasionally I’ve had to gulp and go “Oh no its horrible how will I EVER TELL THEM”
Then I hide in a cupboard until everyone has forgotten I ever read it in the first place.
But then sometimes this happens. Not only is Deep Down Dead banging brilliant but it is probably one of the best thrillers I have read in years. Years and years. So no cupboard for me, instead I get to write up this review and tell y’all to go get yourself a copy smartish and sit down for a day (and you will read it in a day it doesnt allow for anything else) with Lori and JT.
Deep Down Dead is fast paced, intelligent, intense and character driven whilst being full of thrills and spills, edge of seat moments and the odd time where you pull all your hair out and read it with half a hand clapped over your eyes. If ever a book should be a movie Deep Down Dead is it, with its beautifully authentic locations, insanely well layered characters and a plot to die for. Just you know, remember to breathe.
The writing is superb, the language crackles the character voices being spot on perfect – descriptively this is an utter joy, a truly immersive experience where the world around you fades and you are thrown into Lori’s world. A stripper turned bounty hunter (only you Steph!) whose skeletons are about to come rattling out of the closet in the form of JT, a blast from her past, she will capture your heart and your attention in utterly memorable fashion.
That alone is enough to make this one of the good ones (which is putting it mildly) but then there are layers to Deep Down Dead that shine in the underneath of it all. A real sense of feeling for the characters and the places they occupy, more than one level to them all, some dark themes explored within the narrative and ultimately more than just all talk and action. This one has the brains to go with it. I’ve been loving my analogies lately so I’m going to say Deep Down Dead is like a beautiful blonde supermodel who you assume is shallow and lacks intelligence but then turns out to have a masters in astrophysics.
Loved it. Loved loved loved. Can you tell?
Read it. Live it. Love it.
Highly Recommended. With bells on. (I don’t have any actual bells but you get my point)
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Happy Reading!
