Little Town Lies by Anne Strieber

Last night I was looking at my TBR books, trying to decide what to read next. My DH came downstairs wondering what I was doing and when I told him, he asked if he could pick the next one. I couldn't decide, so I told him to go ahead. He selected Little Town Lies and it sounded good, so I gave it a shot. It was a disappointment, however, and I can only rate it a C.

From Amazon:
Under the surface of small town Texas are dark undercurrents of suffering and depravity: alcoholism, domestic violence, child abuse, arson, animal mutilations -- and brutal, obscene murder.Social worker Sally Hopkins knows that it's only a matter of time before the perpetrator becomes a sexual predator, a serial killer with a twisted mind. Sally's burnt out on Houston's big city crime, just shy of forty, and she doesn't want to be involved -- but no one else in her East Texas hometown of Maryvale has the training to follow the tell-tale clues left at each scene.And the handsome young state trooper who's also been called in to help is helping Sally. He revitalizes her, rekindles her long-buried passion for life -- and together they break through the walls of secrets and lies, to stop the killer before he strikes again.

I thought that this book would be a great quick read, and while it was quick, it wasn't great. First of all, it was so unbelievable. Sally is a social worker who decides it is time to head home and immediately gets sucked up in animal torture cases. Now I am a huge animal lover and the mere thought of torturing an animal is disgusting, but the stress and importance Sally puts on this case is somewhat laughable. She actually says at one point that some of the officers shouldn't stop and eat dinner because this case needs to be solved now. Then about a third of the way through the book, Sally becomes appointed as the sheriff after the old one decides to retire. I am so sure... someone with absolutely no criminal justice background becomes a sheriff of a county. That, along with other things in the book, just made it too difficult to suspend belief and enjoy the book. I also found that there was way too many exclaimination marks and short sentences, and the timeline did not flow correctly. I blame part of this on the editor though, as I caught a lot of mistakes which tends to irritate me. With all of that being said, I did enjoy reading about a small town in Texas and the mystery was a good idea, but it could have been done much better.

I am not sure what I am going to read next. I have a library book checked out but am really not in the mood to read it. I am very tired right now and have a tutoring appointement tomorrow morning at 10:00 along with my online job, so I think I will just wait until tomorrow to pick out my next read. Daylight Savings Time is also going to mess up my inner clock as well, and I really wish I was lucky enough to live in onoe of the two states where they do not participate in this silly event. I hope everyone is having a great weekend and Happy Reading!