NANCI RATHBUN - HONOR KILLS (2018)

Synopsis/blurb...

A missing husband. A suspicious obituary. She’s not the only one hunting down a dead man’s footsteps.

As a divorcee, Angelina Bonaparte knows firsthand the lengths some men will go to escape responsibility. When a worried mother wants the private investigator to track down her missing husband, she’s eager to bring the deadbeat dad to justice. But even after she discovers the man’s obituary, she refuses to believe it until she sees the body. Tracking down the nurse who last saw him alive could be the missing puzzle piece to her client's broken family.

But as she digs deeper, she realizes there’s something darker at play than dodging child support payments. And she may not be the only one hunting the man down. To close the case and reunite her client's family, she must track down the missing husband without falling prey to the same ruthless hunter.

Honor Kills is the third book in the captivating Angelina Bonaparte Mysteries series. If you like bold female detectives, edge-of-your-seat suspense, and unexpected twists, then you’ll love Nanci Rathbun’s gripping novel.

My second outing with Nanci Rathbun and her fifty-something PI Angelina Bonaparte, and a more enjoyable experience second time around after reading Cash Kills earlier this year.

We have a missing persons case which has been unsolved for a few years and which is the only one Angelina never resolved. Her and intern Bobby, keep an eye open for death notices and the like in an effort to bring closure to her client and her family. One day out of the blue, one appears, but as far as Angelina is concerned it's a bit too convenient.

More digging follows, and like peeling layers from an onion, Angelina uncovers multiple identities and a man running, not so much from his family, but from a previous life before he met the women he loved. Trying to broker a deal between the man, his estranged family and his former employer's via her father proves complicated and unsuccessful. Things take a dark turn. There will be no happy ending for her client. Angelina now has a new focus on finding out who betrayed her.

I liked this one a bit more than the earlier book in the series, though at the time I read that I was a tad stressed. There's a likable quality to Angelina, she's tenacious, determined, honest to a fault and she gets the job done. We also experience the trials and tribulations of her personal life with her extended family and the serious relationship with her cop boyfriend. Here it is fair to say the course of true love never did run smooth. No pity party for Angelina though, she picks herself up, dusts herself off and carries on. There's a decent balance to the amount of professional and personal on display.

I enjoyed the investigation into our missing person, the peripheral characters we encountered along the way, the nuggets of information that were gradually uncovered, the help received from some serious and seriously capable contacts - encountered in our earlier book, the conversations with her father and the bruising encounters with her lawyer and his secretary. I did guess who gave the game away. I probably would have been more Old Testament in my desire to punish the guilty, Angie is a bit more forgiving and philosophical than I am, more mature.

Overall - enjoyable with a decent pace. Still maybe a bit too much information divulged regarding a fifty years plus lady's undergarments - I have a very delicate constitution!

4 from 5

Nanci Rathbun has written three mysteries so far - Truth Kills, Cash Kills and Honor Kills.

Read in November, 2018
Published -2018
Page count - 286
Source - Net Galley copy originally which expired, second copy from author.
Format - kindle