2015 Rainbow Awards Winners: Lesbian Mystery / Thriller

And the Rainbow Award goes to:

1. No Good Reason by Cari Hunter
Paperback: 264 pages
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books (June 9, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1626393524
ISBN-13: 978-1626393523
Amazon: No Good Reason (The Dark Peak Series Book 1)
Amazon Kindle: No Good Reason (The Dark Peak Series Book 1)

“I can’t do this. I can’t do any of this without her.”
Detective Sanne Jensen (not blonde, not tall, definitely not Scandinavian) and Dr. Meg Fielding (scruffy, scatterbrained, prone to swearing at patients) are lifelong best friends, sharing the same deprived background and occasionally the same bed.
When a violent kidnapping stuns the Peak District village of Rowlee, both women become involved in the case. As Sanne and her colleagues in East Derbyshire Special Ops search for the culprit, and Meg fights to keep his victim alive, a shocking discovery turns the investigation on its head. With the clock ticking, Sanne and Meg find themselves pushed closer by a crime that threatens to tear everything apart.

A fabulous mystery, well grounded in setting, creepy and steadily paced, reminiscent of the television show Broadchurch.

Very good craft. Great story. I would like to have seen more kickass in the heroine. A little to indecisive for my taste. But a great story idea that really grabs you about midway through. I’d like to have seen the heroine force the issue a little more. The plot components are all there and in order. But the heroine could have made that flow a little faster, a little more captivating by rebelling every once in a while. Setting is Excellent. The reveal was a little slow on a few issues and, I believe, incomplete on others. The heroines’ father. How that impacted her decision making could have been developed a little more. And there were two specific times I wanted to grab the H and yell at her. Go do this now. You not doing this particular thing is out of character for you. The most important of the two was when they finally linked one person to the killings (Farley I believe) and everyone else gave up on the second victim (Rachel). And our H went home wounded and tired, all teary eyed, but she had a hunch or maybe a hope. She shouldn’t have given up. She should of fought Meg to the point of anger and continued the search on her own. In the dark. In the rain. Through the pain. That’s what makes our heroes heroic. Great stuff. Nice flow. Very clean. Well edited. Only mention here would be using a lot of brand names. Especially products that a reader outside the UK may never have heard of before. Great one. I will be finding another title by this author for personal reading.

Brilliant. This started out looking like another trudge through a cliché formula, then suddenly spun out into a hair-raising hunt. I'd go on about how good it is but I don't want to give away any surprises. A real surprise.

An excellent start into a new series oozing with brithisness and characters who run deep.

Runners Up:
2.    The Acquittal by Anne Laughlin   
3.    The Surrender by Terias McKlay   
4.    Blind Trust by Jody Klaire   
5.    No Thru Road by Linda M. Vogt