For more than twenty-five years, Philadelphia homicide detective Bree Taggert has tucked away the nightmarish childhood memories of her parents’ murder-suicide…. Until her younger sister, Erin, is killed in a crime that echoes that tragic night: innocent witnesses and a stormy marriage that ended in gunfire. There’s just one chilling difference. Erin’s husband, Justin, has vanished.

Bree knows how explosive the line between love and hate can be, yet the evidence against her troubled brother-in-law isn’t adding up. Teaming up with Justin’s old friend, former sheriff’s investigator and K-9 handler Matt Flynn, Bree vows to uncover the secrets of her sister’s life and death, as she promised Erin’s children. But as her investigation unfolds, the danger hits close to home. Once again, Bree’s family is caught in a death grip. And this time, it could be fatal for her.

‘Cross Her Heart‘ is the first book in a ten-book crime series about Bree Tagget, a PPD Detective with a notoriously traumatic childhood who comes home to the small upstate New York town she was raised in when her sister is murdered.

The opening scene almost made me put the book aside. It had eight-year-old Bree making a 911 call while trying to hide her two younger siblings from her enraged and violent father who is beating up their mother. It was tough to take and I wasn’t happy seeing this scenario, no matter how realistic, being used to furnish a detective character with a unique backstory.

I stuck with the book because it was well-written and I quite liked the grown-up Philidelphia Police Department Bree who I met in the next chapter, chasing down a bad guy.

I’m glad I stuck with the book because I had a good time with it and it’s made me keen to read more of the series. It wasn’t that anything in the novel was terribly original but it was entertaining and well-written. The storytelling was focused. The narrative had a strong forward motion but didn’t feel too brisk. The emotions were strong and the situations were dark.

Bree didn’t feel real to me at the start, she was all police officer and no personality, but that changed when she went home. I soon became as interested in finding out more about her as I was in seeing the murder mystery unfold.

The plot is a nice balance of mystery and thriller, with more action than puzzle-solving. The solution to the mystery was a little convoluted but it worked and it kept me entertained,

The investigation was made more interesting because neither Bree nor the retired-due-to-on-the-job-trauma-that-he’s-still-working-through-local-detective -Sheriff had any jurisdiction. It didn’t hurt that the retired police officer had a retired police dog at his side. Instalove was avoided, real families were involved and the people were easy to believe in. I liked that the action scenes were vivid and intense.

The novel ended in a way that resolved the mystery and laid the groundwork for the rest of the series. I’m already looking forward to reading the next book, ‘See Her Die‘.