A Season to Lie by Emily Littlejohn

First Line: On a cold and bitter night in February, twelve weeks after giving birth, I returned to what I knew best: death.

It's just what new mother Gemma Monroe needs on her first day back on the job: there's a blizzard howling outside and the station has received a report of a prowler at Valley Academy. She and her partner, Finn, think it's a prank, but when they do a check of the school property, Gemma discovers a grisly scene out in the snow. The dead man's true identity was meant to be kept a secret, but no one at the Cedar Valley Police Department knows how long that will last. Besides, that's the least of their worries because an ominous note was left with the body promising more deaths to come.

Like the first book in the Gemma Monroe series, author Emily Littlejohn proves in A Season to Lie that she can create a premise for a mystery that will keep readers turning the pages. Unfortunately, the story as a whole fell a bit flat for me, and there were two main reasons for this.

One was Gemma's personal life. She's a brand-new mother who's finally come to terms with the fact that she is and that she enjoys being a mother. But somewhere between having to stop and use a breast pump every couple of hours and her partner whining about being stuck at home with a baby, I just wanted her to forget she had a personal life and concentrate on the investigation. Which leads to the second problem.

Gemma's investigation of the death of a famous man who was incognito there in Cedar Valley really had my interest until I deduced the identity of the killer by the description of the character and how everyone reacted to the person. From there on in, my interest deflated like a slow leak in a snow tire. I don't like it when this happens because it's not always a sign of my superior deductive skills. Sometimes it's simply a matter of my suspicious nature.

But by all means, your mileage can certainly vary, so don't be hesitant about giving A Season to Lie a try-- especially if you've read the first book in the series.

A Season to Lie by Emily Littlejohn

ISBN: 9781250089410

Minotaur Books © 2017

Hardcover, 304 pages

Police Procedural, #2 Gemma Monroe mystery

Rating: B-

Source: Amazon Vine

 

Inherit the Bones by Emily Littlejohn

First Line: In my dreams, the dead can speak.

Cedar Valley, Colorado is filled with hikers and campers in the summer and skiers and snowboarders in the winter, but beneath the beautiful scenery that surrounds the residents lie some pretty gruesome secrets.

Almost forty years ago, two little boys disappeared without a trace until Detective Gemma Monroe uncovered their bones a few years back. Their murders remain unsolved, attributed to a ghostly monster locals call the Woodsman. Now a young man has been murdered in a seedy little traveling circus, and as Gemma tries to find justice for the victim, she's going to uncover secrets that will shake this Colorado community to its foundations.

This is a debut novel that doesn't read like one. Emily Littlejohn has a beautiful, lyrical writing style that captivated me from beginning to end. She's also created a nuanced main character that I definitely want to read more about. Gemma Monroe's parents were killed in a car wreck, and she was raised by her grandmother who is now in the grip of dementia. Gemma is pregnant, and her partner is off in the wilds of Alaska on a geological survey. Their relationship is complicated; Brody is a man Gemma loves deeply, and she trusts him with her life-- she just doesn't trust him with her heart. So she's got all sorts of personal troubles compounded by being forced to work with a fellow officer whose ethics have been questionable on more than one occasion.

Inherit the Bones has a fascinating premise that kept its hooks in me throughout the book, but it's one you can't really talk about for fear of giving things away. Whodunit was easily deduced by me this time around, but with the character of Gemma, the storyline, and the way Emily Littlejohn writes, I didn't care. I'm looking forward to more.
 

Inherit the Bones by Emily Littlejohn

ISBN: 9781250089397

Minotaur Books © 2016

Hardcover, 336 pages

Police Procedural, #1 Gemma Monroe mystery

Rating: B+

Source: Purchased at The Poisoned Pen.