Robert Dugoni

Robert Dugoni has woven a tangled web of rage, murder, arson, and possible fraud all bound up in a civil case. Stranger things have happened. Returning to their hometown of Cedar Grove, Washington for what was supposed to be a brief respite, a married couple, one a lawyer, the other a homicide detective, have stepped into a vicious wasp’s nest.

Lawyer Dan O’Leary is fighting a potential eminent domain takeover by the city of his client’s property and business. Detective Tracy show more Crosswhite, on maternity leave, is encouraged to take on an investigation into the death of the new sheriff’s wife. As a standalone the book is great. As a continuation in the series it is even greater as it ascribes additional dimensions to the characters we have gotten to know. There is just enough backstory that a first-time reader of the series will be able to fit many of the puzzle pieces together and those of us who have some familiarity will appreciate the reinforcement and reintroduction to the peripheral characters. The introduction of a baby, motherhood, a complete family circle allows for a softening and introspection that was well thought out and appropriate.

I loved the courtroom drama and the fleshing out of that part of the plot. Now about that jurist - best Judge ever – Sustained, Overruled and wow, just about perfect. Robert Dugoni never disappoints me. I look forward to each of his books.

Thank you NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for a copy. show less

After three books, I think I've decided that I would want David Sloane as my lawyer, since he always wins. But I wouldn't want to hang out with him. It's not that he's not a nice guy. He's terrific. The problem is that the people around him tend to get shot or abducted.

Such is the case in Robert Dugoni's latest Sloane story, Bodily Harm. In this one, Sloane and his friends and family get caught up in a medical malpractice case that turns into intrigue around the safety of a new toy and power show more struggles within and between the toy companies.

The story begins a bit slowly, just setting up the situation with a bit of mystery. But once it takes off, Dugoni keeps you turning pages in true thriller style trying to keep up with what's happening and why. The writing is crisp and clean. Characters and locations are vivid. The ending is a real twist that I didn't see coming (but should have).

But that twist is really a bit of an authorly cheat involving withheld information. Likewise, there several scenes where the reader is left guessing about the point-of-view until the end of the scene or later. But these are really just minor quibbles and would have only knocked off 1/2 star if I could have done so.

Fair warning to the reader (semi-spoiler): the toy safety issue is based on an actual case of children dying after swallowing powerful magnets. The medical and family factors are discussed repeatedly. There is also a shocking early scene where someone close to Sloane is shot. show less

I have read only one book by Robert Dugoni, the Extraordinary Life of Same Hell and it was exceptional. I loved it. Thinking the genre of A Steep Price was so different I had slight trepidation when I opened the latest in the Tracy Crosswhite Series. As the expression goes, “no worries”, Dugoni writes crime, murder and high suspense extraordinarily well.

This book stands alone and while reading the previous five books in the series would obviously fill in some of the back story I never show more felt adrift. The characters were credible, both in their police and private lives. Tracy Crosswhite and her partner Kinsington Rowe become involved in a missing person’s case which delves into ethnic, parental and feminist issues. Detectives Del Castigliano and Vic Fazzio have their own subplot and it was a nail-biter. A personal subplot examines a devastating situation confronting the Fazzios.

As I was reading I kept telling my husband that this has to be his next go-to series. The story is interesting and fast moving, the characters are human and interesting and the writing is terrific. No doubt about it – I am going to read the five previous books as I look forward to Book Number 7.

Thank you NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for an ARC show less

I came across 'My Sister's Grave' as I was excavating the depths of my TBR pile. I bought it back in 2015, about a year after its release as an audiobook, when it was being promoted as a debut novel from a promising new author kicking off a new series. Then I lost sight of it. I found it again because I saw good reviews of 'One Last Kill' (2023), the tenth and latest book in the series.

As soon as I started to read 'My Sister's Grave', I was slapping my forehead and asking "How have I let show more this sit on my shelves untouched since 2015?" I was immediately swept up by the storytelling. There was nothing startlingly original about content or form. It's a familiar formula for an American police procedural BUT it was really well done. The intercut timelines worked well, capturing my curiosity and engaging my emotions. I was hooked and having fun.

It helped that Tracy Crosswhite was easy to like. She's not a prima donna. She doesn't have a substance abuse problem. She isn't prone to suicidal ideations as a result of past sins. So she avoids the obvious hard-bitten detective clichés. Instead, she's someone who has the respect of her peers and who enjoys her work as a Seattle PD homicide detective. When she returned to her small home town in Washington State, where the local sheriff knew her parents and watched her and her sister grow up, I got to see a little more of her passion and her frustration but I also saw how well she kept control of herself and focused on getting the results that she needed.

I was drawn in by Tracy's relationship with her younger sister, Sarah and felt strongly enough about Sarah herself that I was angered by my foreknowledge that no matter how brave or resourceful she was, she wouldn't survive.

I thought the book was stronger because it wasn't a one-woman show and it wasn't all about detection. Tracey enlists the help of her school friend, Dan O'Leary, now a lawyer and he handles the courtroom part of the action. I thought the court scenes were well done. Still a little more dramatic than real life but without any 'Perry Mason' histrionics.

The mystery has enough twists that I didn't guess at the outcome. This was partly because of how well-drawn the characters of local Sheriff Roy Calloway and convicted killer Edmund House were written. Both of them came across as untrustworthy and dangerous and neither of them had clean hands. House was chilling throughout. Calloway was... gratifyingly complex.

This was a page-turner of a book, cleverly structured to maintain the tension, engage the emotions, feed the curiosity and deliver excitement by cutting between present and past and between discovery and action.

The upside of having let a very entertaining book sit on my shelves for nine years is that nine more books in the series have already been published. I looking forward to reading my way through them.

I listened to the audiobook version of 'My Sister's Grave', narrated by Emily Sutton-Smith and I'll be sticking with that format for the next book, 'Third Watch'. Click on the SoundCloud link below for a sample of Emily Sutton-Smith's narration.

https://soundcloud.com/brilliance-audio/my-sisters-grave-by-robert-dugoni show less