The third in a series, Make A Killing likely wouldn’t work as a standalone (I struggled somewhat just for having not read book 2). But if you’re able to hunt out the first two books prior to this one, I’d highly recommend for fans of PI novels such as Laura Lippman’s Tess Monaghan series.

Another fabulous story about Billie Levine and her PI business that she partners with her grandfather. A suspicious accident resulting in a death brought Billie into the investigation, and almost at the same time she was hired by a high end Avant Garde clothing company CEO regarding her cheating husband. Before long Billie is involved with both cases and their complex and devious actions.
The intricate plotline is an absolute delight to anticipate what could happen. So many unexpected twists and turns had me riveted and reading until hours past midnight! As all of the books by this author, countless details come crashing together for a shocking conclusion. This mesmerizing-captivating-enthralling-extraordinary book is the third in this incredible series.

I absolutely love this series! I’ve read both previous books and so was happy when I got approved for this new one. Brilliant crime books that you need to read

Cheating husbands are common, cycling guy’s getting killed, or college girl’s getting harassed rather less so. For a PI the first are a steady income, which is why Billie Levine focuses on catching men in flagrente. Strictly speaking, Billie isn’t a PI, it’s her Grandfather who has the licence, but there are places that young girls can go that old men can’t. Billie’s latest case is Heath, the husband of Katherine the CEO of Von Holm Gear (VHG)a major, perhaps the major, fashion store in NY. Katherine believes he is having an affair with Nina, a VP at a subsidiary company wholly owned by VHG, and employs Billie to get proof by taking the role of an intern within the company. Unfortunately, Heath has employed another PI, Jeremy Yang, to investigate possible embezzlement, and has placed him in a similar covert intern position. This is unfortunate because, in addition to having to not reveal each other’s real identity, Jeremy and Billie have history, of the love/hate kind. Separately, Billie and her grandfather are investigating a case of possible harassment and assault of a girl at a local college, which the college authorities have dismissed as a minor incident. And also the death of a cyclist, classified as an accident by the police, but which a friend believes must have been a hit and run, because the cyclist wouldn’t have come off his bike in that way. Three minor jobs for a young PI in need of money – until a death at the office leads Billie into a much larger and murkier conspiracy, and the three cases suddenly become part of this bigger picture.
This is the third in a series but can be read as a standalone. It is written in a style reminiscent of a golden age detective story, especially in its use of language, although it is not as hard-bitten as those, or indeed as the earlier books in the series. The use of separate plot lines which eventually come together is quite characteristic of the genre, so the trick is to keep the reader guessing about the nature of the connection, the real criminal basis for the apparently incidental separate investigations, the identification of the murderer and the motive. Since I didn’t spot either of these until late on, I have to rate the murder-mystery as a 5. That’s an over generous score for the book as a whole, but plot usually wins with me.
I would like to thank NetGalley, the publishers and the author for providing me with a draft proof copy for the purpose of this review.

Private Investigator Billie Levine works with her grandfather to solve cases at their PI firm. She is young but determined and has a thorn in her side when it comes to rival PI Jeremy Yang who has been stealing her clients. While Gramps works on the case of a young man whose family believes his death was not accidental like the police insist, Billie ends up on opposing sides Jeremy in the case of a wealthy couple trying to bring each other down.

This one was a rather average detective novel, albeit with a younger than usual detective. It compared itself to Veronica Mars without the charm of Kristin Bell and her hard boiled, seen it all world-weariness. I thought the character of Billie was a little too bland and unfinished. The cases were semi interesting, though I did figure out some of the ending which is always a bit of a let down for me. 3 stars for this run of the mill detective novel.

I received this advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review.

3.75 stars

PI Billie Levine is a great character. This second in a series mystery featuring Billie is a fun read. She is smart, independent, defensive, cynical and caring all at the same time. And tough -- don't forget tough.

Billie is in business with her grandpa, who is a long-retired cop. She and her mother (who is experiencing increasingly severe dementia) and he all live together. She has a brother who is in the mix as well.

Billie is trying to keep her family afloat financially by doing divorce cases and she is good at it because she is inventive and shameless in getting the goods on cheating spouses. Word of mouth brings her a big corporate client who allegedly wants to catch her husband misbehaving.

But the whole corporate setup is strange. This is not a happy workplace and the client is the queen bee who wields a tremendous amount of power and is not telling Billie everything. Meanwhile, another case may or may not be related -- the death of an investigative reporter who was looking into some fraud and also sexual harassment at a college.

To complicate matters, old frenemy Jeremy has been hired by the client's husband -- so both Jeremy and Billie are in disguise at the workplace as they try to find out what's happening. A dead body or two come along and the stakes increase. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

There isn’t enough I could say about how good this book is! I was hooked from page one, and I think my favourite thing was I was guessing up until the end and that is my kinda read! I couldn’t put this one down!

I loved every page I kept saying to myself “one more chapter and I will stop”, well that never happened, I raced through it as I absolutely loved it!

Three words to describe this book suspense-filled, unputdownable and an addictive page- turner with a wild unexpected twist!

You definitely don’t want to miss this one when it comes out! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️stars!