J. Mark Bertrand

Dear Readers,
Back on Murder is written by Deeanne Gist's co-author J. Mark Bertrand. The styles of the stories are about a different as you can be and still be in the same genre. With Beguiled they wrote a light quirky mystery. In Back on Murder Mr. Bertrand writes a much more gritty mystery. The main character is much harder to feel sorry for as he writes him as a grumpy guy who can't figure out whether he wants to keep his job or just doesn't care anymore. Yes, I hear all you librarians asking, it is a good guy book. The main character, Roland, is a homicide detective that is barely holding on to his job. He has an unusual gift in being able to offend others without even really trying.

When a missing teen has everyone in town looking for her, Roland is convinced that it is connected with a multiple murder that happen just a few days before. The problem is nobody believes him and they are not really interested in his ideas that seem to point in that direction. He is not only fighting his own reputation he is fighting his own demons.

I was really caught up in the book as soon as I started reading it. Even though there was nothing about Roland to make me like him, I actually found myself hoping he was right instead of failing completely. I don't know what it was about him that I liked, but it was something. This is one of those good mysteries that has loads of threads to follow and yet it isn't so confusing that you forget who everyone is. I like that as it keeps me guessing to the end, even though I did have it figured out at one point, because of one of the clues Mark dropped in, I changed my mind. Rats. :-)

Happy Reading