Thank you Minotaur Books, #partner, for the advanced copy of Next of Kin in exchange for my honest review.
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Published: April 23, 2024
Summary:
From the Tony Hillerman Prize-winning author of Pay Dirt Road comes Samantha Jayne Allen’s mesmerizing new novel set in a hardscrabble Texas town dealing with disaster.
At a gathering for her cousin’s wedding party, newly-licensed PI Annie McIntyre gets asked an age-old question, the answer to which will prove more consequential than she bargained Nature or nurture? Clint Marshall, an up-and-coming musician and an adoptee at a personal crossroads, wants to hire Annie to find his biological parents. Annie accepts his case, not knowing then that she, too, must decide if she really believes what she tells him that night—in essence, that people are in charge of their destinies. That people can change.
When Annie discovers her client’s father is a bank robber who her granddad, Leroy, arrested back when he was sheriff, reverberations sound between the past and the present, igniting old flames and rivalries. When the brother of her client dies suddenly, his death ruled a suicide, Annie questions whether or not it was in fact homicide—and who in this family of outlaws would rather some secrets stay buried.
As Annie sets out to find who killed the brother—and stays out of sight lest she be next—she finds herself searching abandoned, overgrown fields, scouring pool halls and roadside motels, wondering if she will ever escape the sense that her world in Garnett, TX expands and contracts in off-kilter ways, growing smaller and yet still more confounding. Fearing that in a place where everyone knows everyone, your enemy is always closer than you think.
My thoughts:
This is the third book in Samantha Jayne Allen’s Annie McIntyre series and somehow, I never got around to reading this one last year when it came out. I am not sure when the next book is coming out, or if there will be more to this series, but it is one I do enjoy and am glad I finally got around to reading this one.
Once again, I love the small-town feel to this series. I think it works so well here, especially with the nature of the case that Annie finds herself involved in. And what I really appreciated in this latest installment, having read all three books so far, is that we really have seen Annie come into herself as that newly-licensed PI. She earned that role and while there is still some self-doubt, she does a whole lot more doing than thinking and I loved that!
This book kept me fully invested and the twists and turns it took kept me guessing all the way through. As I said, I’m hopeful there will be more to this series – I do enjoy it very much and would love to see more of Annie, especially now that she is fully licensed as a PI!
Books in this series:
- Pay Dirt Road
- Hard Rain
- Next of Kin
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