LitPick Review
Private Investigator, Thomas Bradley Stone, owns his own business, Stone Investigations, in the quaint New Hampshire town of Concord. His business is doing fairly well and things seem to be moving in the right direction for him until a new client, Lucia Nardone, comes in wanting to hire TB. Lucy feels that her fiancé, Giorgio Abraham Adamo, who passed away nine months ago from sustaining fatal injuries from a serious car accident, didn’t die from his car sliding into a ravine as it was reported. Considering Abe was a winter survivalist who loved the extreme cold temperatures, dying from his injuries and succumbing to the extreme cold just doesn’t sit well with her. So, she decides that she will hire an investigator to get some answers that no one else seems to want to obtain.
TB isn’t sure why he is second-guessing taking on this case. He feels that Lucy may just be having a hard time dealing with her fiancé’s death and can’t find peace with how the accident played out. Putting his gut feeling aside, he takes the case and immediately starts doing his research. As soon as he starts requesting the police report and autopsy results, things start spiraling out of control extremely quickly. Demanding phone calls start happening, having someone inquire why the police report and autopsy results are being requested. Someone is assaulted in one of the offices that have the copies of the reports. Things go from normal to abnormal in a blink of an eye. What does TB uncover during his investigation?
Opinion:
I really enjoyed this Private Investigation Murder story! I loved the characters, especially TB and Lucy. As Lucy was presenting her ideas to TB, I was also leery of TB taking this case, but I wasn’t sure why. I felt there was something more sinister behind the case, and I felt bad for Lucy because no matter where she turned, Abe’s family seemed content with the results of the police report and autopsy. No one else seemed to question the fact that Abe was a person who knew how to survive outside in the cold, in the country setting like where he died, considering he would constantly camp outside in the dead of winter and loved doing it whenever he could. Cold weather shouldn’t have played a part in his death as it was reported. Then when the aggressive phone inquiries started happening and then the assault on one of the secretaries, I knew TB was poking at a hornet’s nest.
Mr. Feece created characters that were well-rounded and completely believable to his readers. You could easily believe these were real people you were reading about and developing feelings for as you eagerly turned the pages. I loved TB because he just seemed like a stand-up kind of gentleman, and I wanted him to get down to the truth of what really happened to Lucy’s fiancé. With each obstacle TB faced, I found my heart pounding in my chest, and I couldn’t turn the page fast enough to see where it led him to next. I felt bad for Lucy because you could tell she truly loved Abe and she deserved to find out the truth to his death once and for all, even if that meant she had to hire a PI to accomplish it.
One thing that I want to mention that I did find a bit of a distraction was that the author started off the story naming Lucy’s fiancé as Abe, but on Page 16 it became Alex, then by Page 21 went back to Abe again and continued with this name for the rest of the story. I just wanted to bring that to the author’s attention because I did find it a bit of a distraction and had to re-reference Lucy’s fiancé’s name to make sure that Alex wasn’t a new character being introduced. Even with this hiccup in the story, it didn’t take away from the storyline as a whole.
Overall, Love, Pride & Murder is a mystery that will have the readers eagerly turning the pages for more. The storyline was thoroughly entertaining, the characters were well-rounded, and the suspense carried right until the very end. Plus, once you find out what truly happened, readers will feel satisfied in the end. Great job, Mr. Feece!
