Title: Murder in Shades of Red
Series: DS Charlie Rees: Book Three
Author: Ripley Hayes
Publisher: Amazon/Kindle Unlimited
Length: 193 Pages
Category: Mystery/Suspense
Rating: 5 Stars
At a Glance: There are no few heart-wrenching moments along the way that flipped the script on my emotions and made me love Charlie and Tom even more. For fans of the DS Charlie Rees series, this installment is a must-read.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: It was supposed to be a holiday. In New York City. A chance for Tom to do some drawing, and for Charlie to see the sights.
The streets of the city seem safe and clean. Everyone is friendly, and the doughnuts are to die for. Charlie and Tom are in love and planning their future.
Then a shocking event turns the world upside down.
Charlie has to question everything he has ever believed. And Tom? Tom may not even survive.
Review: Ripley Hayes takes on some shamefully American subjects in Murder in Shades of Red: right-wing, neurotic, conspiracy-theory politics and mass shootings. It’s the shooting—and, on a smaller scale, its location—that knocks the foundation of security out from under innocent bystanders as well as provides for the tension and drama and a mystery that DS Charlie Rees is left to solve. Even as he has no authority to do so, and then becomes a target himself.
Hayes lays out a great plot for readers to devour while her characters partake of us emotionally. Tom is barely clinging to life, and Charlie is desperately clinging to hope while trying to snare a murderer. All while he’s being kept from Tom’s hospital bedside. The clues and motives in the case are clearer to Charlie than to local and federal law enforcement, thanks to the identity of one of the victims. But it’s not long before he finds himself embroiled in the investigation as a suspect rather than a detective. And his sole ally could conceivably be his enemy. Charlie is a stranger in a strange city, as isolated and alone as he could possibly be in the midst of 8.5 million people, and Ripley Hayes renders that clearly.
The personal and professional peril overlap beautifully in Murder in Shades of Red to not only move the story forward at a nail-biting pace but serves to nudge Charlie and Tom’s relationship into new territory as well. There are no few heart-wrenching moments along the way that flipped the script on my emotions and made me love Charlie and Tom even more.
For fans of the DS Charlie Rees series, or of a taut, well-plotted mystery in general, this installment is a must-read.
You can buy Murder in Shades of Red here: