Moss's best to date. Interesting back story and a strong, if repetitive, ending. Was sad to see Bogey dispatched so quickly after Andy. Would have liked more on the deconstruction of Luther Hand. ( )

Siren' by Tara Moss is a fast paced story about a private detective who has some issues of her own to resolve while solving a case. Sounds a bit familiar, doesn't it?

The story is well worth reading, or listening to. It does, however, end rather abruptly leaving us with twist in the tale and the possibility of a sequel. ( )

The fifth book in the Makadee Vanderwall series and a continuation of the story. Some book series just feature the same characters, but this one is the same story and to fully appreciate it, one should really read the books in order. The ending of this book is rather sad in many ways but sets up the next book nicely. ( )

This book started out well, as have Tara's previously Mak novels. The case is interesting and sends Mak on an exciting chase through Australian and international cities.

I had issue, however, with the end where the book seems to take a completely different turn as though it's a new story all together.

The case for Mak, her main storyline and all she is seen working for in the book as a PI, is locating a young man named Adam for his mother and bringing him home. We read from Mak's POV as she tries to locate him and from Adam's POV as he strives for a different life.

And then in one sentence after Mak locates him, Adam decides to go home. There is no conversation between him and Mak, no explanation, no nothing. They're just in an airport and she's heading home, which starts the new 'story'. Hitman Luther has Mak in his sights and locates her, ties her up and keeps her in a cellar. It doesn't really make sense. This man is shown to have no remorse or really take issue with those he kills. He slips into a hotel room in the middle of the night, shoots a couple in the head, and then goes on his way. His sudden need to keep Mak alive when he was just hired to kill her doesn't make sense, there's been no foreshadowing to it.

Mak ends up having sex with him to distract him so she can escape; a plotline that I take extreme annoyance with. Women are able to get themselves out of situations without having sex, but the fact that Mak is a former model and constantly struggling with being beautiful in a world of ugliness seems to want to justify why she has sex with her captor.

It may be the worst in the Mak series, in my opinion, but it was at least better than Tara's cringe-worthy attempt at supernatural writing in The Blood Countess. ( )

Siren opens with a gruesome murder on the other side of the world from Australia, but quickly shifts focus to Makedde Vanderwall and her seemingly unrelated (and simple) missing person case. Mak has returned to Sydney with unfinished business between herself and the powerful Cavanagh family, the ones who set a hitman on her the last time she was there. Her quarry this time is a young (and innocent) young man run away from home, or was he taken? Although 19 and clearly independent, his widowed mother has hired Mak to track him down. A job that Mak feels a little conflicted about.
And so the reader is taken on a ride as Mak tries to find the boy, who may or may not, have left voluntarily and who may or may not have run away to join the circus. Another complication is her old nemesis, Luther Hand, from her earlier case. Will he find her first and finally rid his client of a very pesky thorn in his family's side? ( )