While Crime/mysteries are not my usual genre, after reading a First Impression on Bookish.com, I was hooked and then luck enough to win a copy. This is my unbiased and voluntary review. Captivating characters, a provocative and skillfully written narrative, make this a hard to put down page turner.
It is best to read Crimson Lake first. In that book, Sydney drug squad detective, Ted Conkaffey, was falsely accused of a brutal rape of a young girl. But as there was no forensic evidence, only circumstantial and hearsay, he is released from prison after 8 months. Meanwhile his colleagues, friends and wife have turned their backs on him, believing the lies. The only one who believed in him was his lawyer, who set him up with a PI, Amanda Pharrell, in a small town, Crimson Lake. While they solved a crime together and he proved that she had been falsely imprisoned, he has also picked up others who believe in him, included a coroner, who also acts as his doctor and a journalist, who came out to snag an interview and left believing in him so much, she started a podcast, Innocent Ted, to prove his innocence. And he becomes a goose daddy.
This volume starts with the father of the victim, tracking him down, invading his home and almost killing him, until Ted convinces him that he has a lead on the real pedophile. While he and Amanda have a new case to solve, he needs to return to Sydney for a supervised visit with his daughter and an interview on Stories and Lives, where they try to sabotage his reputation even more with another false accusation. But he also finds that the drug lords, who he put away don't believe the charges against him and seek to protect him. Can he help Amanda solve the murders in Crimson Lake while also following the leads to prove his innocence by tracking down the real pedophile before he strikes again?
It is best to read Crimson Lake first. In that book, Sydney drug squad detective, Ted Conkaffey, was falsely accused of a brutal rape of a young girl. But as there was no forensic evidence, only circumstantial and hearsay, he is released from prison after 8 months. Meanwhile his colleagues, friends and wife have turned their backs on him, believing the lies. The only one who believed in him was his lawyer, who set him up with a PI, Amanda Pharrell, in a small town, Crimson Lake. While they solved a crime together and he proved that she had been falsely imprisoned, he has also picked up others who believe in him, included a coroner, who also acts as his doctor and a journalist, who came out to snag an interview and left believing in him so much, she started a podcast, Innocent Ted, to prove his innocence. And he becomes a goose daddy.
This volume starts with the father of the victim, tracking him down, invading his home and almost killing him, until Ted convinces him that he has a lead on the real pedophile. While he and Amanda have a new case to solve, he needs to return to Sydney for a supervised visit with his daughter and an interview on Stories and Lives, where they try to sabotage his reputation even more with another false accusation. But he also finds that the drug lords, who he put away don't believe the charges against him and seek to protect him. Can he help Amanda solve the murders in Crimson Lake while also following the leads to prove his innocence by tracking down the real pedophile before he strikes again?