Roses & Thorns

Roses & Thorns

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Nowhere to Hide: A Pine Hills Police Spinoff by Terry Odell



Blurb:

The trouble with running away is that you take yourself with you.

After police officer Colleen McDonald is injured in a case gone south and her partner dies, she leaves her job and friends in small town Pine Hills Oregon for a fresh start as a civilian in Orlando. When a deputy sheriff comes to her door investigating a possible missing person, she’s determined to get him out of her life by beating him at his own game.

Jeffrey Walters is missing—or is he? His stepdaughter insists he is. His aunt claims he’s simply out of town on business. His former business partner knows nothing. There’s a stranger living in his guesthouse.

To Deputy Sheriff Graham Harrigan, finding Jeffrey might be his ticket to a permanent slot in the Criminal Investigations Division. He’s determined to prove he’s worthy of the promotion despite an unearned reputation passed down by an unsavory training partner. The attractive woman living in Jeffrey’s guesthouse complicates matters. Their rivalry becomes a partnership that stretches the boundaries of a professional relationship.

Nowhere to Hide features Colleen McDonald, a character first introduced in Finding Sarah, Book One in the Pine Hills Police Series. In series chronology, the book would fall between Finding Sarah and Hidden Fire, but Nowhere to Hide stands alone and can be read in any order.

This Kindle edition features additional content not found in the previous print version.

About the Author:

Terry Odell was born in Los Angeles and now makes her home in Divide, Colorado. An avid reader (her parents tell everyone they had to move from their first home because she finished the local library), she always wanted to “fix” stories so the characters did what she wanted—in books, television, and the movies. Once she began writing, she found this wasn't always possible, as evidenced when the mystery she intended to write rapidly became a romance.

However, her entry into the world of writing can be attributed to a “mistake” when her son mentioned the Highlander television series on a visit home. Being the “good mother,” she began watching the show and soon connected with the world of fanfiction—first as a reader, then as a critique giver, and then, one brave weekend, she wrote her first short story.

Things snowballed and soon she was writing her first original novel. Much later, she mentioned something about a recent Highlander episode to her son, and he said, “Oh, I've never actually watched the show. I just thought the concept was cool.” Little did he know what he’d started.

With a degree in Psychology from UCLA, she loves getting into the minds of her characters, turning them loose in tight spots and seeing what they do. Too often, they surprise her.

Review by Rochelle:

I received the boxed set of all four Pine Hills Police books in return for an honest review. Unlike so many series I receive, each book stands alone and there are no cliff-hangers! Thank you, Ms. Odell!

Colleen “Mac” McDonald was introduced in Finding Sarah, the first book of the Pine Hills Police trilogy. She’s a good, smart cop, and if Randy Detwiler had his way, she’d be a detective. But, there isn’t room in the budget to promote her. So, she’s stuck on patrol, and when a domestic call goes terribly wrong, her partner is killed and Mac is wounded.

Mac wasn’t working with her usual partner that day, and Montoya’s normal partner is a misogynistic jerk. He loudly proclaims Montoya’d still be alive if he’d been on the call (or any other man for that matter), and calls Mac a coward. Thinking everyone believes that, she takes a medical pension and moves as far from Pine Hills as she can get—Orlando, Florida. She moves into the guest house on an estate, and promptly gets involved in a missing persons case involving the estate’s owner. She meets Deputy Sheriff Graham Harrigan, who is trying to move from patrol to criminal investigations in his own department, and together they investigate the seeming disappearance of Mac’s absentee landlord.

I have to say, I was somewhat disappointed, having just read Saving Scott, which had a similar basis—wounded cop baggage. To make matters worse, I figure out pretty early whodunit. But again, that’s me. It might not be quite so obvious to a reader who doesn’t write.

Still, I really liked Mac in Finding Sarah, and I was really disappointed when she left Pine Hills. I was happy to follow her to Orlando, and Ms. Odell’s portrayal of Mac’s reaction to the roller coasters and fireworks at the nearby theme park are a heart-rending portrayal of PTSD.

All in all, Nowhere to Hide is still a really good book, and I recommend it. If you can, though, jump to it and read it chronologically—between Finding Sarah and Hidden Fire. It stands alone just fine, but that way you’ll have Hidden Fire as a buffer between Nowhere to Hide and Saving Scott, so maybe the similar premises won’t be quite so glaring.

Author Website:  http://terryodell.com/
Heat Rating:  R
Length:  327 Pages
Prices:
Print:  $10.99
Digital:
Nowhere to Hide:  $3.99
Pine Hills Police Boxed Set (Four Books):  $5.99
Buy Links:



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