Category Archives: Gin Sullivan Mystery Series

September 12, 2018 · 11:57 pm

Review: In the Darkest Hour by Anna Carlisle

Title: In the Darkest Hour by Anna Carlisle
Gin Sullivan Mystery Series Book Three
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery, Suspense
Length: 266 pages
Book Rating: B

Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through NetGalley

Summary:

Anna Carlisle’s third chilling Gin Sullivan mystery, is perfect for fans of small-town suspense and authors like Chevy Stevens, Lisa Jackson, and Julia Maynard.

Former medical examiner Gin Sullivan thought she’d put her troubled past behind her—but a deadly web of drugs, depravity, and murder threaten to consume all she loves.

Small-town secrets don’t stay buried for long, and no one know that better than former Chicago medical examiner Gin Sullivan. On extended leave from her job, Gin is back in her hometown of Trumbull, PA, settling into a quiet life with her old high school sweetheart, Jake Crosby. But the demons of Gin’s past are lying in wait—and when Jake’s estranged mother turns up dead in a local motel from a heroin overdose, life in Trumbull begins to unravel one thread at a time.

Dead set on revenge against the dealer, Jake brings in local high school student Jonah Krischer to face justice. But Trumbull police chief Tuck Baxter has to contend with the boy’s father, a prominent physician who threatens legal action over the unconventional arrest—even though Jonah admits to stealing his dad’s prescription pad to sell phony opiate prescriptions for cash. And when Jonah offers to lead police to a body in exchange for leniency, the stiff turns out to be one of the doctor’s own patients. Is there a killer on the loose in Trumbull?

The race is on to find the truth in Anna Carlisle’s In the Darkest Hour, the third hair-raising Gin Sullivan mystery.

Review:

In the Darkest Hour by Anna Carlisle is a perplexing mystery. Although this newest release is the third book in the Gin Sullivan Mystery series, it can easily be read as a standalone. However I do recommend the previous novels as well.

Gin Sullivan has settled into live back in her hometown. She works as a consultant with the medical examiner’s office, she is a volunteer at the local school and she is living with boyfriend Jake Crosby. But the unexpected death of Jake’s long estranged mother, Marnie Bertram, casts the future of her relationship in doubt. Jake takes justice into his own hands when he tracks down the dealer who sold his mother the drugs that led to her fatal overdose. The dealer, eighteen year old Jonah Krischer, then provides information to Police Chief Tuck Baxter in exchange for immunity. He gives details of a body he found by a local hunter’s cabin and Tuck enlists Gin’s expertise in assessing the body in situ. Protocol demands Baxter turn the case over to senior homicide Detective Bruce Stillman and his partner Liam Witt. Tuck doubts the case will be a high priority so he and Gin work together to try to solve the puzzling mystery.

Gin is not one to go along with Jake’s vigilante justice so she immediately phones Chief Baxter to take charge of the situation. Unable to convince Jake there are better ways of dealing with his grief and anger, she is hurt by a decision he makes without any input from her. In need of a distraction, Gin teams up with Tuck to try to identify the corpse they discovered. Unable to talk to Jonah, who has since lawyered up, Gin reluctantly agrees to Tuck’s plan to question someone who might be more involved in the case than they are admitting. She does uncover some very intriguing information but will her empathy for the possible suspect cloud Gin’s judgment?

After Gin figures out the identity of the dead man, she warily works with Detective Stillman who is just as abrasive and offensive as always. Together they make an absolutely stunning discovery that just adds to their confusion about what is going on. Gin continues working on the case of her own and she makes some very ill-thought out choices that put her in the path of a very sick and twisted killer.

In the Darkest Hour is a fast-paced and confounding mystery with a socially relevant storyline. Gin’s insight is key to solving the mystery but she still makes rather impetuous decisions that place her potentially dangerous situations.  With clever red herrings and misdirects, Anna Carlisle keeps the perpetrator’s identity and motive for the crimes concealed until the novel’s tension-filled conclusion. Old and new fans are sure to enjoy this well-written addition to the Gin Sullivan Mystery series.

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Filed under Contemporary, Crooked Lane Books, Gin Sullivan Mystery Series, In the Darkest Hour, Mystery, Rated B, Review, Suspense

September 10, 2017 · 11:58 pm

Review: All the Secret Places by Anna Carlisle

Title: All the Secret Places by Anna Carlisle
Gin Sullivan Mystery Series Book Two
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery, Suspense
Length: 304 pages
Book Rating: C+

Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through NetGalley

Summary:

Gin Sullivan is back in her small hometown of Trumbull, Pennsylvania on an extended leave from her job at the Chicago medical examiner’s office and rekindling an old flame with her high school sweetheart, Jake. Gin is readjusting to life at home when Jake receives harrowing news early one morning. The new housing development his construction firm is building has caught fire and underneath one of the burnt homes is a dead body.

When the body is identified as a man who may very well be the violent offender who terrified Gin’s childhood town years ago, the pool of suspects broadens and it becomes a greater challenge to pinpoint his killer. Gin is determined to unearth old demons, hers included, but soon finds some people will kill to keep them buried.

Small town secrets cast daunting shadows in All the Secret Places, Anna Carlisle’s riveting second Gin Sullivan mystery.

Review:

All the Secret Places is an intriguing addition Anna Carlisle’s Gin Sullivan Mystery series.

Still on leave from her job as a medical examiner in Chicago, Gin is uneasily settling into life in her small hometown in Trumbull, PA.  Having rekindled her romance with her former high school boyfriend, Jake Crosby, the couple are living together but Gin is concerned about the future of the relationship. During a fire at Jake’s construction site  for an upscale home, firefighters unearth a badly decomposed body on the property. Gin is less than thrilled when abrasive Detective Bruce Stillman is assigned to the case and she is worried that his bias towards Jake will have a negative impact on the investigation. Will Gin, along with some help from the newly hired Trumbull Police Chief Tuck Baxter, find out the cause of the fire and the truth about the corpse before it is too late?

Gin and Jake’s relationship is already a little troubled and in the aftermath of the fire, the tension between them continues to grow. Communication is not exactly their strong suit so Gin is mostly in the dark about how things are going with Jake’s construction business.  Although Jake knows she cannot discuss the case with him, he is very frustrated at not being kept in the loop. With so much dissent in her personal life, Gin is taken off guard by her unexpected attraction to Tuck who makes no secret of his interest in her.

Amidst all this uncertainty, Gin does everything she can to uncover the truth about what happened on Jake’s construction site. An uneasy evening with Jake’s construction foreman and his wife seemingly provides some much needed information about the fire.  However, Gin is confused by contradictory details when she investigates the lead before taking the information to the police. The preliminary examination of the buried remains is somewhat discouraging but Gin notices some  inconsistencies that she is hopeful will help Jake.  However, she is disheartened by her inability to find the proof to back up her suspicions.

What should be a straight forward murder mystery becomes rather bogged done in Gin’s personal dramas, Detective Stillman’s lack of partiality and  political posturing. Gin is also rather prone to jumping to conclusions and making impetuous, ill-thought out decisions that put her into dangerous situations. It is also somewhat frustrating (and a little unrealistic) that Jake is once again fighting to prove his innocence when he is at the center of another investigation.

Despite a few frustrations with the storyline and a somewhat slow start, All the Secret Places has plenty of unexpected twists and turns.  Although the culprit for one of the mysteries is rather easy to figure out, the resolution of the other crime is quite unexpected. Old and new fans will enjoy this latest installment in Anna Carlisle’s Gin Sullivan Mystery series.

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Filed under All the Secret Places, Anna Carlisle, Contemporary, Crooked Lane Books, Gin Sullivan Mystery Series, Mystery, Rated C+, Review, Suspense

July 10, 2016 · 11:56 pm

Review: Dark Road Home by Anna Carlisle

Title: Dark Road Home by Anna Carlisle
Gin Sullivan Series Book One
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery
Length: 304 pages
Book Rating: B

Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through NetGalley

Summary:

The summer after she graduated from high school, Gin Sullivan’s little sister Lily went missing. Her family fell apart, not to mention her relationship with her high school sweetheart, Jake. Now, almost twenty years later, Gin is living in Chicago and working as a medical examiner when she gets the call: a body’s been found in the woods outside her small hometown. It could be her sister. After all these years, it’s time for Gin to go home and face the demons she tried to leave behind.

Confronting your past is never easy, but for Gin it also means confronting Jake, who was the prime suspect in Lily’s disappearance. To find an answer to the question of what happened to her sister that fateful summer, Gin makes the difficult decision to use her talents as a medical examiner to help the police investigation. But as Gin gets deeper into the case, she uncovers a shocking truth that could change everything–if it doesn’t destroy what’s left of her and her family first.

Buried secrets come to light in Dark Road Home, Anna Carlisle’s sharp and simmering debut mystery.

Review:

Dark Road Home, the first installment in Anna Carlisle’s Gin Sullivan series, is a compelling small-town mystery.

Medical Examiner Virginia “Gin” Sullivan returns to Trumbull, PA after the remains of her long missing sister Lily have finally been discovered.  Although it has been nearly twenty years since Lily vanished, Gin and her parents, Richard and Madeleine, are hopeful the police will catch her killer, but suspicion falls once again on Gin’s ex-boyfriend Jake Crosby, the police chief’s son.  As Gin tries to reconnect with old friends, Christine and Tom, she uncovers troubling information that takes the investigation in a shocking direction.

Gin’s life was never the same after Lily’s disappearance. Her relationship with Jake ended amid her suspicions that he might have killed Lily and her friendship with Christine and Tom drifted into yearly Christmas cards. Leaving behind painful memories, Gin has a successful career in Chicago and she has a comfortable relationship with her boyfriend. It is not until she returns to Trumbull that she realizes how unsatisfying and empty her life has become. Although her trip home is fraught with tension, Gin is surprised by how drawn she is the dying town.

Through her connections with local law enforcement, Gin is allowed to observe the autopsy of Lily’s remains.  Cause of death is easy enough to determine but a stunning discovery turns the investigation upside down and forces Gin to rethink everything that happened in the months leading up to Lily’s disappearance.  She works up the courage to confront Jake and she is dismayed to discover her attraction to him has not lessened over the years.  Their interactions are barely civil and sometimes laced with hostility and she wavers back and forth on whether Jake is truly responsible for Lily’s murder.

Following another suspicious death, Gin’s investigation intensifies and she, along with Jake, find damning information about someone close to her.  A puzzling bit of information provides a new lead and once another long buried secret is exposed, Gin is fairly certain she knows who killed Lily.  Instead of taking their suspicions to the police, Gin and Jake confront the suspect but their discussion quickly takes a dangerous turn.

Although some aspects of the storyline are somewhat predictable, Dark Road Home is a riveting mystery.  With a vast suspect pool, an unclear motive and little evidence, the investigation is rather slow paced but it is full of unexpected twists and turns. Anna Carlisle brings the novel to a pulse-pounding and somewhat poignant conclusion that will leave readers eagerly awaiting the next installment in the Gin Sullivan series.

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Filed under Anna Carlisle, Contemporary, Crooked Lane Books, Dark Road Home, Gin Sullivan Mystery Series, Mystery, Rated B, Review