Review: Silent Ridge – Det. Megan Carpenter #1 (Gregg Olsen)

I’d previously read The Hive by the same author, and picked this up as that was okay. Silent Ridge, alas, is not. This is the third book in a series, and if you have not read the first two, it’s going to be a real problem. At least it was for me.

Police are called to the scene of a gruesome murder. Wait, before we begin that, let me say that this is primarily written in first person, present tense. I really do not like that. I persevered, though, and Detective Carpenter shows up at the scene. We immediately know she has some kind of connection to the victim, because we’re flat out told that she does. Does she tell anyone, so she can be restricted from investigating it due to her emotional compromise. As we all know for maverick cops, they do their own thing and basically flaunt everything there is about proper law enforcement and investigations.

I absolutely do not like this character. She is by turns whiny and angry. She lies to the people around her, and is paranoid even at the best of times. Without even an ounce of investigation being done, she’s decided that the murder has to be something related to her childhood. In fact, there are many, many, many, ad nauseum instances of connecting every single thing to her terrible childhood. This woman should be on desk duty at best, with mandatory psych evals once a quarter at least.

All of that psych stuff, after awhile, starts to feel like filler. There was no tension because we get the murderer’s scenes, too, so the mystery slowly drains out like one of those blow up kiddie pools that springs a small leak. Worst of all, Carpenter seems to wallow in the childhood trauma, and after awhile, I just didn’t care because it was boring. I wanted then to catch the murderer before I gave up on the book (which, to be honest, happened multiple times)

If you’re pressed for something to read, or you’re a fan of the series, you might like this. Sorry, but I did not. It took months for me to finish it, something completely abnormal for me.

Two out of five stars, and a vow not to read anything else in this series.

Thanks to Bookouture and NetGalley for the reading copy.