Monday, March 16, 2020

Julie's Review: No Bad Deed

Author: Heather Chavez
Series: None
Publication Date: February 18, 2020
Publisher: William Morrow
Pages: 320
Obtained: publisher
Genre:  Psychological Thriller
Rating: 4.5/5
Bottom Line: A great twisty, turn-y thriller that keeps you turning the pages
Grab, Just get it at the library, or Remove from your TBR list? Grab

Summary: Driving home one rainy night, Cassie Larkin sees a man and woman fighting on the side of the road. After calling 911, the veterinarian makes a split-second decision that will throw her sedate suburban life into chaos. Against all reason and advice, she gets out of her minivan and chases after the violent man, trying to help his victim. When Cassie physically tries to stop him, he suddenly turns on her and spits out an ominous threat: “Let her die, and I’ll let you live.” A veterinarian trained to heal, Cassie can’t let the woman die. But while she’s examining the unconscious victim, the attacker steals her car. Now he has her name. Her address. And he knows about her children. Though they warn her to be careful, the police assure her that the perpetrator—a criminal named Carver Sweet—won’t get near her. Cassie isn’t so sure.The next day—Halloween—her husband disappears while trick-or-treating with their six-year-old daughter. Are these disturbing events a coincidence or the beginning of a horrifying nightmare? Her husband has been growing distant—is it possible he’s become involved with another woman? Is Cassie’s confrontation with the road-side attacker connected to her husband’s disappearance? With all these questions swirling in her mind Cassie can trust no one, maybe not even herself. The only thing she knows for sure is that she can’t sit back while the people she loves are in danger. As she desperately searches for answers, Cassie discovers that nothing is as random as it seems, and that she is more than willing to fight—to go the most terrifying extremes—to save her family and her marriage.


Review: You see a couple arguing, it's dark out and raining, do you stop to interfere or do you keep going home to your own family? Cassie stops because she is one for helping others. This stop will change Cassie's life for the foreseeable future. She can't step away and let someone die to save her own life, it's not who she is, now. Except he's stolen her car with her all of her information, which means he knows everything about her. The police who she talks to view her as a suspect instead of a victim so that she begins to search for answers on her own.

Cassie feels in her gut that her husband's disappearance is related to what she witnessed and interfered with the day before. While Cassie and her husband haven't been on the same page lately, he would never leave their daughter alone with people she barely knows. So since the police haven't exactly been willing to work with her, Cassie is working the angles on her own.

I definitely wasn't expecting where this book took Cassie and therefore the reader. Ms. Chavez does a great job of throwing some red herrings including some cliches. Those are what makes the ending that much better. I read a lot of psychological thrillers and I loved that I didn't see it coming.

This is Ms. Chavez' first novel but she will be one that I keep my eye on for her sophomore novel.

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