Revised rating: 9/12/25, please see notes at the end of original review.
6/10: 3⭐️‘s

This is author Robert Laurie’s debut book.

Dean and his wife Helen are living the good life. High-school sweethearts, jobs they enjoy and now a baby on the way! (although I am confused about the longevity Dean has had his job (due to his age and factoring in that college is mentioned etc, little details that didn’t quite add up for me) and his actual job title. Early in the book he is described as the urology manager at a hospital and later described as the office manager in the urology department is that me being overly persnickety though?)

One afternoon Deans staff requests that he go out to purchase decorations for St. Patrick’s day. There, at the store, he sees her. He is angry, livid, and everything changes. She needs to die. She will die. (Not a spoiler). Then everything will be fine. Everything will be back to normal.

Two junior detectives are assigned to the murder to the case. Amanda Mancini (stellar work ethic) and Martin Schmidt (lazy as mud).. Can they solve this before anyone else is hurt?

There are several nit-picky things I could hone in on, beyond the two things previously mentioned in regards to Deans job; but I kind of don’t want to. People can read and decide if they are things worth being a smidge annoyed with or not themselves.

The writing could have been a bit more put together, Characters could have been more defined. But again, it’s a debut book and I have never written an entire book, only a handful of chapters, so being overly critical to a new author seems rude? Unkind? Not very encouraging?

I will say this, I finished this in an afternoon. My suspicions about a reveal were confirmed later on in the book. But even after I had my suspicion, the need to know WHY was DEMANDING that I continue on and find out. There was definitely some suspense to this book. I think there is potential for a series that could be good.

If a book is demanding that I finish it in one sitting, something clearly appealed to me!

I encourage others to read this book for themselves and form their own opinion! I do hope this author comes out with a follow up book to this one.

Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me the opportunity to read this debut book! All opinions are my own.

Original rating and review posted: 9/3/25
Edited: 9/4/25
REVISED rating: 9/12/25
After doing some thinking about this book, I decided that it deserves a solid 3 stars instead of my original 2.5 stars rounded up. The need to know WHY and having that need be fed enough to have me finishing the book in one afternoon, not all books have that quality or ability. So for feeding that need to know, this book deserves a solid 3⭐️’s and not a rounded up 3⭐️’s. There was enough there to overlook some of my nitpicky things. I think there is definitely real potential for even better books to come from this author!

I absolutely loved this book!! Fast-paced, It hooked me from the first page. Descriptive, but not overly. Really made me feel like I was in every scene. I really hope it’s the first in a series.