Snow Creek

I quite enjoyed the first of the Megan Carpenter Tapes series. Set in the rural Pacifica Northwest, this is one convoluted mystery! It's tinged with chaos theory and entanglement too! One character causes red herrings for Detective Carpenter. In the sussing out of that interference, she comes across yet another crime. While I enjoyed the modern day mystery component, it is the past that captures more of my attention, and that part didn't get wrapped up!! As Megan listens to the taped sessions of her work with a psychologist, we begin to get a good appreciation for who she is now, and the shadows that haunt her. We don't get all the way to learning exactly what she did in her youth that was so bad, but someone seems determined to use it show more to cause problems. Exactly what kind of problems, and what she did, are for later books.

I liked most of these characters. It was the punk teenage girls I loathed most. I'd like to say that I don't like Merritt either, but it was through the eyes and voice of one of those punk teens that we learn about him. Since they really seem to have an entitlement complex in my mind, I'm not inclined to fully believe them. It probably doesn't help that I've been watching wayyyy too much true crime lately, and there were many many cases of teenagers getting parents into trouble (it even killing them) because they don't like the restrictions placed on them. Or worse, because they thought they were 'in love,' and their parents didn't want them to be with the partner they were with, usually cause that person was also an entitled punk or because they were way older. I liked Megan well enough, but my favourite characters were Sheriff and the sheriff's office's sole forensic tech. I mean, she works primarily as a florist! And Sheriff just seems like a big lovable teddy bear. I'm definitely looking forward to the next in the series.

***Many thanks to the Netgalley & Bookotoure for providing an egalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. Reviewed for JBN Tours. show less

I was immediately drawn into this story. The plot has so many twists and turns that I had to keep stopping to recap...just to make sure I had the facts straight. The writer's style is a bit disconnected at times but never boring. Rylee, or Megan Carpenter as she is known at the Sheriff's office in Port Townsend, is a good, caring cop. As she investigates a series of puzzling murders, she is also revealing her own mysterious past by revisiting tapes recorded by her therapist years before. I believe there's more to Megan than just your normal flawed, former-victim, now-bad-ass-investigator though. The next book will tell.

Lots of twists and turns in this gripping thriller. Megan Carpenter is a flawed policewoman with many secrets. The book left us hanging at the end, in preparation for the next book. I always enjoy Gregg Olsen!