This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration.

Bad Axe County

Summary: Dennis Lehane meets Megan Miranda in this tense, atmospheric thriller about the first female sheriff in rural Bad Axe County, Wisconsin, as she searches for a missing girl, battles local drug dealers, and seeks the truth about the death of her parents twenty years ago—all as a winter storm rages in her embattled community.

Fifteen years ago, Heidi White’s parents were shot to death on their Bad Axe County farm. The police declared it a murder-suicide and closed the case. But that night, Heidi found the one clue she knew could lead to the truth—if only the investigators would listen.

Now Heidi White is Heidi Kick, wife of local baseball legend Harley Kick and mother of three small children. She’s also the interim sheriff in Bad Axe. Half the county wants Heidi elected but the other half will do anything to keep her out of law enforcement. And as a deadly ice storm makes it way to Bad Axe, tensions rise and long-buried secrets climb to the surface.

As freezing rain washes out roads and rivers flood their banks, Heidi finds herself on the trail of a missing teenaged girl. Clues lead her down twisted paths to backwoods stag parties, derelict dairy farms, and the local salvage yard—where the body of a different teenage girl has been carefully hidden for a decade.

As the storm rages on, Heidi realizes that someone is planting clues for her to find, leading her to some unpleasant truths that point to the local baseball team and a legendary game her husband pitched years ago. With a murder to solve, a missing girl to save, and a monster to bring to justice, Heidi is on the cusp of shaking her community to its core—and finding out what really happened the night her parents died.

 

Traveling With T’s Thoughts:

When a publicist emailed me about this book and with a Netgalley widget for reviewing- I was kinda excited about this book. It sounded in the same family of books I like to read, but with a bit more grit.

Well, while I did like the book ok- this book has a lot more grit. And evil. And just a general ickiness as I turn the pages.

 

What I Liked:

If ever there was a cover that fit the tone of a book- this one does!

The short-ish chapters. Good for mounting tension… and there was plenty of tension.

 

What I didn’t love:

While I wouldn’t say this book had gratuitous violence, the author is dealing with some serious topics ( human trafficking, for one). Reading that, reading what the girls went through while there was a good ole boy “wink, wink, nudge, nudge” network all up in Bad Axe County really turned my stomach. I kept reading to find out what would happen- but it def gave me the bad chills the further I got into it.

And while I know this happens- there is human trafficking, there are drugs, there are people willing to look the other way to make a buck or for their own personal power game- when I read, I don’t always want to be faced with what I know the world has parts of.

 

Bottom line: For me, there was parts I liked and I loved Heidi Kick. But big parts of this book was just a bit too much for my heart.

 

*This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration. All thoughts and opinions are mine alone.*

 

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Happy Reading and Bookishly Yours,

T @  Traveling With T