Category: Literary Criticism

Laura Griffin really has a way of getting under your skin. Her mysteries always leave me more aware of cars following me, my cyber security, being on alert for terrorists, and of course watching out for stalkers who might tamper with my home security. She has such a great way of tapping into the very real fears that women live with—make sure you have a peephole, always check the inside of your car, have a home security system, keep your hedged trimmed etc. This book left me chilled to the bone even if I didn’t understand half of what was going on.

This book takes a much more techy turn. Up until now this series has been more about police procedures and DNA evidence but now Griffin has taken a new approach and moved into the world of cyberspace. As always I am amazed by the amount of detail and research that Griffin puts into each one of her books but this one really dove into the world hacking and frankly I was lost but I still loved the mystery and couldn’t put it down.

Every time I pick up one of her books, I am blown away by all the little details right down to the jargon. But she rarely makes readers feel overwhelmed or confused by the evidence or the police procedures. I will say this is the exception. I am not a hacker and I don’t know a lot of computer security but that is a huge theme in this book, but I think that Griffin did a good job dummying it down for readers who aren’t as familiar with technology as others.

Continue reading “Review: Deep Dark (Tracers #10) by Laura Griffin” →

Having met Mark Wolfe, FBI Profiler, a few books back I was excited to meet his brother, Liam, in this book. Liam is a former Marine and I loved that this book had this great military angle along with a twisty murder mystery. All in all I was stoked to get into this one, not to mention Griffin has a break out series based on Liam’s security company, Wolfe Security Series. I plan on reading the Wolf Security series once I am done with the tracers series.

In this book we are introduced to potential characters in the Wolfe Security series so that made me excited since this series is winding down I think (there are only 13 books so far). I was fully primed to fall head over heals with Liam but then when I started reading this one, something just felt off. I don’t know that I loved this one as much as I loved others in the series but that’s ok because overall this series is a killer (pun intended!). I think what did it for me was the lack of chemistry between Tara and Liam. For me there wasn’t enough romance to be fully believable.

My biggest take away from this book, was the excitement over the Wolfe Security series by Griffin. Other than that it left me feeling a little meah. It had a dark and twisty mystery which I really enjoyed by Tara and Liam just didn’t mesh for me which made it a little hard to enjoy the romance parts of the story. But I will say the mystery saved this one for me as the mystery was certainly dark and had a lot to uncover and try to sort out. As always Griffin delivered on that front!

Continue reading “Review: Shadow Fall (Tracers #9) by Laura Griffin” →

After finishing the sixth book in the series, I was fully ready for the next book to be all about Derek—and then I got this book. So it was a surprise that we meet Derek in one book and then to have the next book not be about him seemed a little shocking. But I was willing to go with it, who knows it could be that somehow we meet another character in this book that somehow ties in with Derek’s ultimate love story that will likely be the seventh book I guess.

With any long standing series, there are always some books that I like better than others. I think it’s inevitable that some books are simply just better for different reasons and I have to say that this book was not my favorite. While I might not have loved this one, I still am fully in love with this series. This series can certainly be read out of order but personally if I would not recommend starting with this one. For me it just didn’t read the same as the other books and part of that could be that I didn’t love the main character in this one (Maddie).

Just because one book fails to hit the mark though doesn’t mean that the whole series is a bust for me. I will say that I could be in the minority here as most people liked this one but for me it just didn’t live up to the expectations I have had with this series so far. Even still though, I love this series as a whole. It’s so well written, researched, and executed. If you love thrillers you do not want to miss this series, it’s just so wonderful but this book just left me a little meah by the end.

Continue reading “Review: Exposed (Tracers #7) by Laura Griffin” →