Review: Buried Deep – T.R. Ragan

Jessie Cole #4

SYNOPSIS: Two missing persons. One apparent suicide. Three cases pushing PI Jessie Cole and crime reporter Ben Morrison closer to the edge.

Lacey Geiger could be a very rich woman. If Jessie Cole can find her. The beneficiary of a sizable estate, Lacey vanished years ago after escaping an abusive childhood and is veiled now behind a new identity. Jessie has two weeks to find her. It’s enough time to discover that Lacey is hiding from so much more than anyone realized. But she isn’t the only one with secrets. And Jessie’s not the only one searching for the truth.

A concerned daughter has asked for help finding her mother—a woman said to have been murdered thirty years ago. And Jessie’s colleague Ben, an amnesiac still struggling with the bloody memories of a shattered life, is nearer to piecing together a very dark picture. Especially when someone he detests is found dead, hanging from a tree by a riverbank.

Now as the mysteries, puzzles, and lies of three investigations are unearthed, Jessie and Ben will risk everything to bring all that is hidden into the light. – via Goodreads

So another quick and easy read, that has a decent story, so it is not too light, but also not too heavy to go through, either. I really enjoy the Jessie Cole books, where I never really did the Lizzie Gardner books.

Ben Morrison painted to be a very complex character, and while he is, he is not too intense. The romance between Colin and Jessie is sometimes really flat, in the sense that it is not really anything, but Ragan keeps bringing it up to humanise Jessie or something? I don’t know.

Zee is also still an interesting character. She definitely has mental health issues, and they are explored, but again not in depth. I think Ragan likes to touch on subjects, but never gets too involved with anything, so the read always feels lighter.

The one issue there is with these books is that they don’t really have anything that sets them apart from each other, defining them. I look at how I read these two one after another, and thoroughly enjoyed them, but neither stood out on its own. They blur together, though I liked them well enough.

Review: Almost Dead – T.R. Ragan

Lizzy Gardner #5

SYNOPSIS: Life for private investigator Lizzy Gardner will never be the same. It’s been three weeks since her fiancé, Jared, was shot on what was supposed to be their wedding day. He’s in a coma now, and Lizzy is being forced to make a decision she might not be able to live with.

But a string of deaths has forced her to get back to work. While they appear to be unrelated accidents at first glance, a closer look shows they all have something in common. More than a decade earlier, the victims were all members of the Ambassador Club at a Sacramento high school: a posh posse that bullied other students, one of whom remains tormented years later. – via Goodreads

Well, here we are with yet another Lizzy Gardner book, and man, what a kick in the teeth. The first two were such meh reads, and then three and four were much better and quite interesting. Obsessed ended with quite a cliffhanger, and I was interested to see how Ragan would tackle the issue that she presented. The way she went? Sucky. So sucky.

We have regressed to super bad – the book is not good. At all. Instead of being edgy with the whole botched/ruined wedding thing and instead of using this book for extreme character growth/introspection and to pack and emotional punch of note, Ragan blabs around in circles and goes nowhere, and the book is even more unrealistic than others in the series. The cases being investigated by her, Kitally and Hayley are so silly and there is nothing compelling about this book.

There are so many issues that could legitimately be explored in this book, like losing a loved one, respecting another person, dedication, support, domestic abuse, all of those things, and instead this book hobbles along in the most insipid manner possible. The villain dragged back for this? I barely remembered him from the first book. In fact, I barely remember anything about why Lizzy is the way she is, other than that she was kidnapped and held for some time. Like, how bad is it that the main protagonist we have been following for five books now is beyond lacklustre and mediocre? What?

The best way to summarise Almost Dead is extremely bland and boring. What a wasted opportunity that was set up. The book had no heart, and it had so much to work with, too. This series is so hit and miss – and more miss than anything, with only two semi-decent entries so far. The Jessie Cole book started with a bigger bang, and I am thinking that, if Ragan continues that series the way she started it, she will definitely have me sold, because Lizzy Gardner and her band of misfits is really irritating me more than entertaining me.