CReading,, *may edit after reading*

clean, smooth writing.  a bit slow in the beginning(pace).. aren't all crime books that way? 

not enough suspense tho.. i love a very good suspense in crimes. 

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edited: read: 3.5 stars

 

from GR:

As a medical examiner, Samantha Owens knows her job is to make a certain sense of death with crisp methodology and precision instruments.

But the day the Tennessee floods took her husband and children, the light vanished from Sam's life. She has been pulled into a suffocating grief no amount of workaholic ardor can penetrate until she receives a peculiar call from Washington, D.C.

On the other end of the line is an old boyfriend's mother, asking Sam to do a second autopsy on her son. Eddie Donovan is officially the victim of a vicious carjacking, but under Sam's sharp eye the forensics tell a darker story. The ex-Ranger was murdered, though not for his car.

Forced to confront the burning memories and feelings about yet another loved one killed brutally, Sam loses herself in the mystery contained within Donovan's old notes. It leads her to the untouchable Xander, a soldier off-grid since his return from Afghanistan, and then to a series of brutal crimes stretching from that harsh mountainous war zone to this nation's capital. The tale told between the lines makes it clear that nobody's hands are clean, and that making sense of murder sometimes means putting yourself in the crosshairs of death.

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Just as I've said, a slow pace. The story was being built nicely with all the plot and all. Twists were in there. Not many, not that shocking.. but it's okay. I can't review a crime book more technically for now but i'll get used to it eventually. I plan to read crimes this summer and i somehow knew already the gist and the build-up from this book and all the few others that stuck with me years ago.

 

I am currently reading the book 2 of this series and it's more interesting with the biological attack being the challenge, and with Dr. Sam having a new life with his new love.

 

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this girl reading

This is a thriller that took me into the twisted heart of darkness. Just when it felt like I was starting to get things figured out, more questions arose. I liked it, and it was a fast-paced read, even though it was a bit disturbing at times. I will be tracking down the first two books in the series.

Reviewed for Affaire de Coeur magazine in the March 2014 issue: http://affairedecoeur.com.

3.5 star read

A number of my friends have read books by [a:J.T. Ellison|1311949|J.T. Ellison|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1254857757p2/1311949.jpg], so as an author she has been on my radar for a while. I received the second book of her new series featuring Medical Examiner Samantha Owens as an Advanced Reader book, so decided to start with this series. Samantha Owens is one of those women that we find often in books these days. Smart, sexy, accomplished...in short a strong, successful woman. At least she used to be. That was before tragedy hit her two years ago.

In [b:A Deeper Darkness|13261123|A Deeper Darkness|J.T. Ellison|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1329971124s/13261123.jpg|19214552], the first book in the Samantha Owens series Samantha finds that tragedy has struck again in the form of the death of her college love, Eddie Donavan. The police have ruled his death as a simple car-jacking, but his mother disagrees. Hence her request to Samantha to perform a second autopsy and take a second look.

That is the way Ellison begins this top-notch thriller. From there the plot continues at a fast pace, with enough plot twists and interesting occurrences to keep the reader interested. It is quickly obvious that there is more here than meets the eye. What do a car-jacking, PTSD, a diary of secrets written in Latin, and a ex-Army Ranger turned recluse have in common? That is the central question that keeps the reader turning pages in this thrill ride. One thing missing in this book, though, was the heavy romance angle that is usually prevalent in this type of book. I actually appreciated that as I loved the focus on the mystery part of the story.

The characters that Ellison populates this book with is a definite positive. None of the characters are cookie cutter in any way, least of all Samantha, whose demons have driven her to OCD behavior. As a mom, I don't even want to imagine what it would be like to lose a child, and that fact had me feeling a lot of empathy for Sam. The lead detective on the case is battling his own demons, as is the widow of the deceased who never felt that she measured up to Sam, and Xander Whitfeild, the reclusive ex-Ranger who was one of Eddie's best friends. Yet Ellison is able to take all of these characters and not only makes you care about their personal demons, but she does an excellent job of tying them together into a team of characters that really work.

I did find, however, that I wished I would have read the Taylor Jackson books by Ms. Ellison first. (I plan to remedy that quickly)as I believe the story of the demons that Samantha was haunted by had already been brought to light in those books. As a first time reader of Ms. Ellison's work I was a bit put off by her continued alluding to the tragedy that took Samantha's family without ever really explaining it. She finally did explain, but it was very late in the book. I think if I had read the Taylor Jackson books and been familiar with the character this would not have been an issue.

The good news, though, is that I have another bunch of books from this author to read while I wait for the third book of this series to come out in 2014.

Keeping in mind I'm a huge fangirl of JT Ellison...you know how people say, "Man that so-and-so gets better with every book." Well in JT's case it's true. I LOVE LOVE LOVE her Taylor Jackson novels so approached this one with a bit of reserve but Taylor's BFF has always been one of my fave characters. Boy was I glad I did. A Deeper Darkness is a stellar, yet heart-wrenching suspense novel (and yes I almost cried at the end).