Review: Fractured Lives by Charlotte Roddy

                                                       

Print Length: 343 pages

Publisher: Charlotte Roddy (October 24, 2023)

From Goodreads.com: One phone call can change everything…

It’s a request I never saw coming. From someone I’ve spent years trying to forget.

“I need you to help me prove that I didn’t kill my wife.”

I haven’t spoken to Liam Hadley since high school. Now, his wife is missing. Presumed dead. And the cops are making no secret of the fact they think he killed her.

As a former investigative journalist, he thinks I can help him. The truth is, I’ve got my own problems. I don’t want to get involved. But I can’t say no. I still owe him for what he did that horrible night all those years ago.

But the deeper I dig, the more I begin to fear his wife’s disappearance could be linked to a series of horrific murders of young women in Miami Beach.

And whoever’s behind the deaths will stop at nothing to silence anyone who gets too close—including me.

  

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My Rating: 1 star out of 5

This book was like a merry-go-round. Only the controls have malfunctioned so it just keeps going around and around and no one is enjoying it. 

Seriously, that's the best analogy I can think of when it comes to this book. Mara learns something, she confronts Liam, he admits to lying to her. Mara meets up with Ray, he make her uncomfortable to the point she passes out or runs off. Sinclair shows up at Mara's house with more questions despite her telling him repeatedly she hasn't seen either Ray nor Liam in years, yet ends up revealing sensitive details of the case to her. And let's not forget Gow who is just a misogynistic ass to her each and every time we see him (up to and including having her put on a psychiatric hold despite her telling him she cut her arm on glass breaking the window of her neighbor's house after realizing her neighbor had been attacked). None of these characters were likable in the least, except maybe Miss Matty. 

 The plot wasn't any better, dragging on and on by going over the same plot points with the same characters. Yes, Ray and Liam had a falling out years ago. Yes Liam knows more than he's letting on (and yet despite knowing this Mara is surprised each and every time she finds out a new piece of information about him). What really bothered me is how Mara as a former journalist and now editor of a newspaper just goes around interviewing people, and piecing things together on her own. Things she doesn't tell the police if it will make her old pal Liam look guilty. Please. 

And that ending. Man I saw one of the "twists" coming from a mile away, which made me even more irritated with Mara that she didn't see it coming. However, while I found the other twist to be more interesting, it wasn't enough to save this story for me.