The Little Grave by Carolyn Arnold

A twisty mystery police procedural that featured all the key themes: Justice, vengeance, and a start at redemption. This is the first Detective Amanda Steele book. Amanda is a homicide detective for the Prince William County Police Department. She lives in the small town of Dumfries, Virginia, which interestingly enough, though not mentioned in the book, is close to Quantico. The author does a good job with scene and setting. We get a picture of that part of the country and what small town life can be like.

Amanda Steele’s husband and daughter were killed by a drunk driver five plus years before the start of this book. Amanda is also the daughter of the former police chief of the PWCPD. Both these facts drive a lot of the subplots and characterization in the story. Since the accident, she’s been on auto-drive, not getting any pleasure out of life or work. Then, the drunk driver who killed her family is released from prison, but only lasts a few days. He’s found dead in his hotel from an apparent overdose of alcohol. Amanda is alerted to this by a law enforcement friend of hers. In looking at the scene she is not convinced that Chad Palmer drank himself to death.

In the one part that gave me pause, Amanda convinced her sergeant to allow her to work the case to determine if Palmer was murdered and if so, by whom. I’ll chalk this up to literary license. Once past that police procedure faux paus, the rest of the book was good. The one case becomes two cases with the question being are they related. The ending of this book was a great twist. I didn’t see it coming until just before it was revealed. The ending is worth the entire read.

The writing is okay. Not quite the prose of Michael Connelly or John Connolly. Very few, if any, typos, though. No other gotchas jumped out at me. I started out not liking Amanda Steele, but she grew on me as the story went on. I can’t imagine what it feels like to be a mother and wife losing her husband and young daughter like she did, so I had to cut her slack on attitude. She’s a lone wolf, even before the accident, but is forced to work with a partner. She’s shut her entire family out since the accident. And she has some other issues resulting from the accident that play an interesting role in the story. Overall, strong characterization and strong story elements propelled the story along. And in the end, there’s a situation left open that I’m sure the author will pursue in subsequent books. Books I hope to read sometime.

Some profanity, but not much. A couple sexual situations, but no on page sex. The violence is minor and not graphic. I rated this one a four out of five stars. Because of the strength of the story, I’ll rank this one at number five.

1. Rooms by James L. Rubart
2. Every Dead Thing by John Connolly
3. Several Deaths Later by Ed Gorman
4. Citadel (Palladium Wars Book 3) by Marko Kloos
5. The Little Grave by Carolyn Arnold
6. Barrier Island by John D. MacDonald
7. Jake of All Trades by A.T. Mahon
8. Fireplay by Steve P. Vincent
9. Wrong Place Wrong Time by David P. Perlmutter
10. Nowhere Safe by Kate Bold
11. Run for Your Life by C.M. Sutter

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