Loved the opening chapter. It had me hooked from the beginning. The descriptions of the small desert town were great. The main character, Laura, was interesting and likable. My only complaint was I didn't like her relationship with her boyfriend. The times when she went back home to see him broke up the flow of the book. The central mystery of the story was good. It took me awhile to see the whole picture, but once I did, the pieces all fit together. The bad guy was strangely compelling, and I enjoyed reading his chapters too. He came across as a real person, not just as some 2 dimensional character. I haven't read book 1 of this series, but after reading this, I would like to read more. ( )

Police procedural with angst. ( )

This was a fairly enjoyable read that mixed a bit of murder with conspiracy.
Two people are killed at a camping site and the investigator digs into this and goes more broadly discovering things that have been hidden for some time locally in the course of her investigation.
Apparently, in a previous book, which I haven't read, Laura went through some rather disturbing things and this is affecting her as a person and as an officer.
There's the ghost of her former mentor that pops up every so often, but he really doesn't seem to serve a purpose, so I don't know really why he's there, even as a manifestation of her subconscious. ( )

I definitely liked this book more than the first book in the Laura Cardinal Series. While the first book was good, this one was filled with so many twists and turns and so much action that I was constantly on the edge of my seat.

There were a few things that stopped me from giving this 5 stars. Some parts of this book were clearly in need of some more editing (there were some grammar problems and other mistakes), and also whenever there was a change in the point of view there was no note of that or no break in between so it became confusing at times. Other than those problems I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading the next book in the series. ( )

Here we find our female detective, Laura Cardinal, struggling with a new partner, new case and new romance. In this book, Laura is less self-confident and spirals into depression.

Lots of twists and turns here and characters to meet. Perhaps a few too many, as I had to go back and reread earlier sections when some peripheral characters were reintroduced in the last half of the book.

Again, Ms. Black does an excellent job in crafting her mystery and delivering a surprising ending. Read Book 2 immediately after Book 1 (Darkness on the Edge of Town) and couldn’t put it down. ( )