I picked this up when it was free, after one of my book blogging buddies recommended it – through I can’t recall who! Grovelly apologies and if you know you recently featured this one, nudge my elbow and I’ll namecheck you!
BLURB: For Jack Shepherd, tiger shape-shifter and former soldier, life is heading for a dead end. Dead End, Florida, to be exact. When he learns that he inherited a combination pawn shop/private investigation agency from his favorite uncle, Jack’s first job is to solve his uncle’s murder. Because sometimes it takes a tiger’s eye to see the truth.
REVIEW: This is a spinoff series – something I didn’t gather until well into the story – and it didn’t remotely impact on my enjoyment, as Day does a solidly good job of providing bonding moments with the main protagonist. As you may have gathered, this is a paranormal urban fantasy whodunit, though the shapeshifter isn’t the main protagonist featured in the blurb, instead, it’s a sparky young woman called Tess. Like many people in Dead End, she isn’t exactly normal, either, but she does her best to overcome her issues by not touching people if she can avoid it.
I really like Tess, who comes across as warm-hearted and amusing – there are a number of laugh-aloud moments in this book, despite it being a murder mystery. While the investigation is the engine that powers this narrative, there is a lot more going on in the story. Jack’s homecoming is a major feature, for starters. And Tess’s reaction to him… It probably won’t hugely shock you if I mention there is a powerful physical attraction between them, which helps them become a solid team when trying to figure out who is the killer.
To be honest, the murder mystery didn’t take much unravelling. There weren’t all that many suspects and I’d more or less figured out who the main miscreants were just as Tess and Jack got there. But while there are stories where that would be a dealbreaker, this wasn’t one of them. Day writes with a warmth and energy that drew me into this small isolated community, so that I enjoyed the days when the tour bus visited the pawn shop, just as much as Jack facing down the creepy bloke stalking Tess in the middle of the night. Highly recommended for fans of paranormal fantasy.
8/10
Brainfluff 