Her Deadly Promise (DI Gina Harte #12) by Carla Kovach
Genre: Crime thriller, Domestic thriller, Suspense, Police procedural
Read: 5th December 2022
Published: 2nd December 2022
★★★★★ 4.5 stars (rounded up)
DESCRIPTION:
Four-year-old Kayden has been sitting alone on the little patch of tired grass outside his house for hours. His cheeks are wet with tears as he waits for his mother’s warm embrace. But she’ll never arrive to pick up her darling boy. She’ll never be seen again…
Church Road is a quiet corner of suburbia where happy families play in the local park and neighbours smile as they pass in the street. But behind the bright red door of number 8 lies the body of Billie Reeves, a young mum who just took her last breath.
Serena is Billie’s sister. When she found out her boyfriend had been obsessively calling Billie, she’d all but cut her from her life. But not before vowing she would make Billie pay for ruining her relationship…
Shaun is Billie’s ex-boyfriend. He left her the moment she fell pregnant. When he turned up at Billie’s door, demanding to see Kayden, she refused to take the risk of him hurting her precious son. He’ll do whatever it takes to get his little boy back…
Nadia is Billie’s best friend. Their kids attended the same school and Billie often opened up to Nadia about her struggles as a single mother. She knows Billie’s deepest, darkest secret. She promised never to tell, but that was before the argument…
When police investigate the quiet little street, they discover everyone was whispering about Billie’s late-night callers. What was going on behind the closed door of Billie’s small home? And if someone was prepared to kill her, what do they know, and who will be next?
Fans of Angela Marsons, Cara Hunter and Clare Mackintosh, will love Her Deadly Promise – a completely gripping crime thriller that will have you hooked from the very first page!
MY THOUGHTS:
Honestly, just when the last in this series was the best thus far along comes the next case for Gina Harte. And this one HER DEADLY PROMISE is one of the best yet. Instead of serial killers or a local nutter on the loose, this one is filled with all the usual domestic suspense tropes such as secrets, lies, deception, betrayal...you name it, this has it! And one of the reasons this is one of my favourite series is that it is not all filled with the procedural side bogging the reader down with facts, statistics and the holy trinity of murder cases. Instead we hear other voices added to the mix as we try to unravel the truth.
Admittedly, I have tired of a lot of procedurals as I find them too samey and a but too textbook...I have but a bare minimum of crime thriller series that feature procedurals that I still read. And this is one of them.
This story begins with a secret. And secrets are something we can share our closest friends, someone we can confide in or have a shoulder to cry on. At least, that's what friends Billie, Nadia, Meera and Candice thought...until one of their secrets gets out and is soon the hot topic of gossip amongst others at the school gates with fingers pointed and careless whispers spread. And then one of them is found murdered in a pool of blood on her kitchen floor while her 5 year old son sat outside on the step waiting for his mother to call him in. A mother he will never see again.
Enter DI Gina Harte.
As menopause rears its ugly head whilst the country is in the grip of a stifling heatwave, Gina finds herself struggling with her the flurry of flushes at the most inconvenient of times as well as the breakdown of her budding relationship with Briggs. She's finding it hard to move on but as she arrives at the scene and is confronted with the sight of the tearful young boy, Gina puts her problems aside and focuses on the case at hand, determined to find a young mother's killer.
As the investigation progresses, the suspects are in abundance. And Billie, the murdered woman, had many secrets...but would someone kill her for them? But she isn't the only one with secrets as more and more of them come bubbling to the surface in the form of husbands and supposed friends. But would one of them kill to keep their own secret from coming to light?
As the plot thickens, will there be another victim in an attempt to keep the secrets and lies from surfacing? Will Gina find the killer before it's too late? And will she be able to move past the Briggs-shaped elephant-in-the-room in her heart and her head?
HER DEADLY PROMISE is such an intricate tale of secrets, lies, deception and betrayal that is a complex web so intriguing to read you won't be able to put it down! Gina used to frustrate me no end in the earlier books but she has grown along the way as did her relationship with Briggs. But now she finds herself alone with her only confidante in someone else's arms. Briggs, who knows all her foibles, flaws and secrets. And now she has menopause to deal with on top of that and a flipping heatwave!
I read this book in one day as it was so engrossing I was completely immersed within the story. I admit to figuring out Billie's secret almost from the beginning as well as the identity of the killer, despite the numerous red herrings Kovach put in our way to mislead us. And I must admit to wanting Gina to find another face on the hook-up sight she was perusing...I won't say who, but oh how I wish!!
My only complaint is the cliffhanger ending. NOOOOO! How could you do that to us? I want to know what happens now! But I guess I'll have to wait till Book 13.
Overall, a spectacular addition to one of my most favourite series.
I would like to thank #CarlaKovach, #NetGalley and #Bookouture for an ARC of #HerDeadlyPromise in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
Since then she has written & produced several stage plays, has four self-published books, has acted in several independent films and is currently in the final stages of production of her feature horror film, Penny for the Guy.
She now writes full time as well as co-owning a film, photography & video production company located in the heart of Redditch town centre.
Social Media links:
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