Review: The Life and Death of Rose Doucette by Harry Hunsicker

                                                         

Print Length:  320 pages

Publisher: Oceanview Publishing (October 1, 2024)

From Goodreads.com: Dallas PI Dylan Fisher thought he was done with his ex-wife— but now he's solving her murder

Dallas private investigator Dylan Fisher hasn' t seen his ex-wife, Rose, in three years— which is why he' s surprised when she asks him to meet her at a hotel. Rose Doucette is a homicide detective, and she wants Dylan' s help with a murder investigation that she' s been asked to step back from but can' t seem to let go.

They review the details of the case and part ways— but as Rose is leaving the parking lot, Dylan sees a suspicious car begin to follow her. Feeling uneasy, he tails the car and tries to warn Rose, but he' s too late— the driver of the car shoots her, killing her instantly, before speeding away.

The police are determined to pin the murder on Dylan, so he' s left with no choice but to find the killer himself. Teaming up with Rose' s widower, a defense attorney named Tito, the pair dive into Rose' s past to figure out who could've wanted to kill the woman they both loved— and what they were trying to hide.

My Rating: 3 stars out of 5

With a few tweaks here and there, I feel like this one has the potential to be even better. The bones of the story are solid - the ex-wife of a former cop turned private investigator reaches out to him for help solving a murder that she was told was a solid case of suicide. Before he can get more information from her, she storms off and ends up dead. And as the story unfolds, he finds out just what kind of secrets she kept buried all of these years. 

See? Solid concept. Throw in a few corrupt cops, a current spouse with an axe to grind, an "untouchable" family and boy this should have been a 4 or 5 star read, so why wasn't it? 

For starters, it bordered on the implausible a few times, for example how is it that Dylan finds out that an old friend of his wife's is staying nearby and then that person is almost immediately targeted while he is meeting with her? There is no explanation as to how this might have happened, especially since it was an acquaintance of his who even was able to gain access to where she was.  Then we have Dylan being pulled over by one of the corrupt cops on the force (who leaves evidence), but once that interaction is over there is no more mention of this particular officer.

And I mean, on one hand I guess I get it, but I would have found the story a bit more interesting had Dylan pressed charges - how would the story shifted then? Even if the entire police force was crooked (spoiler alert they weren't), it would have been hard to explain what had happened in a way that his lawyer couldn't have argued against. 

On the flip side of that, he had been ordered to stay away from investigating his ex-wife's death by the judge who had granted him bail. And while technically, he could argue he was looking into the death of the man who died prior to Rose, seeing him actually try to clear his name from inside of a jail cell would have been interesting, not to mention the fact that the powers that be would have had no trouble shutting him up from the inside, made me wonder why they didn't go that route. They didn't technically "need him" by that point as the other two people who were invested in what happened would have no doubt carried on their own investigations. 

However, things progressed as they did, and there were just enough dead ends, curious leads, and suspicious characters to keep me invested in this story. I even enjoyed the slight twist at the end, which was something that I had been wondering about. Even though there was a lot going on, it was easy to follow although I still don't entirely understand the reasoning for two people being there as well who really had nothing to do with it.

Nevertheless, the epilogue in my opinion was entirely un-needed unless this author plans to turn this book into part one of a series (which I would whole-heartedly support). Otherwise it didn't make any sense to include, especially when the details seem to come out of the blue after what we learned throughout the novel about certain characters. I mean I suppose going through what they did together might have changed their minds, but I would have liked to see a bit more of that before the ending.

As it stands, I would read more from this author regardless of the characters, but I do think he might be on to something if he wants to make PI Dylan Fisher more than just a one-off character in a story. 

DISCLAIMER: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher. This has not affected my review in any way. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are 100% my own.