What She Left by H.K. Christie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Crime Thriller, Police procedural Thriller
“I gazed down at her and wondered how something so magnificent could have come from something so horrible.”
Martina Monroe is a Private Investigator who is trying to get her life back on track after a drunken car crash that nearly ruined her life. Now sober and determined to stay that way, her boss has finally entrusted her with a real case. The client, an old acquaintance from high school, found a picture in her late mother’s things of her mom and a baby she doesn’t recognize. It’s not her and her dad won’t talk about it. She wants Martina to try and find out who the baby is.
“I would do everything in my power to make sure I found this baby, even if it meant returning to my hometown, something I hadn’t ever planned to do.”
This case however is going to mean that Martina must return to her hometown, a place she hasn’t been back to in a very long time, and maintaining her sobriety may be a challenge. This is the last place she ever saw her best friend before she went missing when they were teens.
“My breath seized as I approached Donna’s old house, which sat next to Kennedy’s parents’ home. I didn’t know if Donna’s family still owned it or if they’d sold it. I hadn’t reached out to them in years. It was too painful. Like me, they didn’t think Donna had run away.”
“I didn’t need to ask him if he’d heard from Donna. She had been missing for thirteen years. I knew the likelihood of her still being alive was slim to none. Hoping she was alive was a pipe dream.”
“Not only was I going to find Amelia and figure out why Charlotte Gilmore’s past was as buried as a pirate’s treasure, but I was also going to find out what happened to Donna.”
Martina soon finds out that the local police have brought in a new detective to focus on cold cases and the first one on the list is Donna’s. When given the name of the detective, she realizes that they have had a run in before and it did not go well. Detective Hirsch was lead on another case years ago, involving the murder of Martina’s client, a woman trying to leave her abusive husband. Police said it was a break in gone wrong, Marina knew it was husband. Would Hirsch really want to find out the truth of what happened to Donna, or just grab ahold of another easy out?
This was a good read for me. POV from both Martina and Detective Hirsch. It flowed well and was a smooth easy ride. I enjoyed the characters, the scenarios were realistic and believable. I would have liked more background on Martina. There were just little tidbits dropped here and there but I was still left with questions. What happened to her husband? Is that what drove her to become an alcoholic? More details on her accident please. Maybe these will be answered in subsequent books in the series and I just need to remain patient.
I am definitely looking forward to reading future books in this series. I enjoyed the partnership between Martina and Hirsch and I am curious to see where it leads.
“The sheriff’s department would like to contract you to help solve more cold cases. We would work side-by-side, similar to what we did here. I think you and I make a pretty excellent team. What do you think? Are you in?”
I keep running into a pattern this year with the books I’m blindly choosing, they all have a common theme, the death of a spouse. Not sure if this testing me or life just continuing to be cruel. Regardless, I will power through.
“My heart ached for Theodore Gilmore. I understood what he was going through. The sudden loss of a spouse was devastating. Without them by your side, you aren’t sure where you fit in the world anymore. He had probably assumed he and Charlotte had many years ahead. Charlotte wasn’t that old, and neither was he. I would have guessed if they were healthy and took care of themselves, they could have twenty more years together. I could almost feel his pain from across the room. I had two years to find my new normal and still struggled. I empathized with Theodore, who’d had less than two weeks to try to comprehend what his life would be like without Charlotte.”
“But you can’t help someone who doesn’t want it or doesn’t think they need it.”
This quote hit me something fierce and I know only too well the truth in these words. My first review in a long time. I’m feeling rusty but it’s slowly starting to come back to me. Just be patient and hang in there with me.
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