Sunday, December 6, 2009

Head to Head by Linda Ladd

My reading has been so slow lately and it's somewhat disappointing. I am not sure why, I guess I've just been really busy lately. Hopefully the upcoming holidays will not slow me down further and maybe my upcoming Christmas break will help things speed up. Head to Head was a great book and fantastic new-to-me author that I discovered. I give it an A-.

Back cover:
After moving from Los Angeles to Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri, homicide detective Claire Morgan has at last adjusted to the peaceful rhythms of rural life. Until a grisly celebrity murder at an ultra-exclusive "wellness" resort shatters a quiet summer morning...
One of Dr. Nicholas Black's high-profile clients has been dound dead, taped to a chair at a fully set table... submerged in the lake. Back in L.A. Claire investigated the rich, famous, and the deadly- but she never expected the problems of the priviledged to follow her... just as she never imagined crossing the line with her prime suspect...
Claire finds herself drawn to the charismatic doctor, spending time in his company- and in his bed. To catch a killer, Claire will have to enter the darkest recesses of the human mind. But is Black leading there to help her... or luring her ever deeper into a madman's grip?

The suspense was really well done and while at times grisly, a great read. Ms. Ladd does a fantastic job of writing as Claire and manages to place some humor in Claire's voice in an otherwise somewhat dark voice. The reader gets an inside look at how and why the killer becomes a crazy psychopath which I enjoyed and manages to throw in a couple of red herrings into the mix as well. There is somewhat of a love aspect to the story, but it was minor and didn't really bother me that much as the real focus was on Claire and the murders she's investigating. I definitely plan on reading more by Ms. Ladd and it appears that Head to Head is the first in the series. I am a bit disappointed that my library doesn't have the next two available, so I may just have to order them off of Amazon if I don't run across them at a UBS. The newest one the series was just released in August and my library does have that one so I am in luck!

I have a busy week this week, with both work and pleasure activities but I must fit in some reading! I'm pretty sure I won't meet the goal I set for myself last year, 135 books, which is a bit disappointing especially since I had such a good late summer/early fall, but the most important thing is that I've read some really great books and I don't make it a chore! I'm off to start a new book in the next half hour before bed calls me, so Happy Reading everyone!

3 comments:

Staci said...

heavens forbid when reading feels like a chore!!! This sounds great. I don't mind grisly if the story is smartly written. I'm going to have to look this one up!

Kristie said...

It was great Staci. I thought the author did a great job of making Claire a bit humourous and snarky while keeping the suspense building. And in reading news, I'm almost done with another book which is fantastic. I even woke up early to get a few chapters in!

Literary Feline said...

I decided to take a week off after Christmas and am hoping I'll be able to settle in and get in some last minute reading before the year is out. Hopefully you will find your reading picks up come the break too.

This sounds like a really good book. I like it when an author can fit in humor in an otherwise dark book. Thank you for your review, Kristie!