Book & Audio Review: Southern Comfort by Fern Michaels

Southern Comfort
Author: Fern Michaels
Narrator: Jeffrey Cummings 
Publication: Brilliance Audio (April 26, 2011); Zebra Books; Reprint edition (October 24, 2011)
Length: 8 hours and 29 minutes; 385 p.

Description: A DEA agent in Florida encounters a seductive suspect in this romantic and emotional thriller from the New York Times bestselling author…

Atlanta homicide detective Patrick "Tick" Kelly turned his back on the world the day his wife and children were murdered. Holed up in a beach shack on Mango Key, Florida, he drowned his grief in Jack Daniels. Now sober and a bestselling author, Tick would gladly stay a recluse forever if his brother Pete didn't keep trying to drag him back to the land of the living.

After years of sacrificing her personal life in favor of her DEA job, special agent Kate Rush resigned and moved back to her native Miami. But the unofficial assignment that has just come her way is too intriguing to pass up. She and a fellow ex-agent are relocated to Mango Key to keep an eye on an imposing, mysterious fortress believed to be at the center of a human trafficking ring. At first, the Kelly brothers are suspected of involvement, but Kate is sure Tick poses no danger--except for the slow-burning gaze that makes her breath catch and her heart race. .

My Thoughts: Former Atlanta homicide detective Patrick "Tick" Kelly moved to remote Mango Key after his beloved wife and children were killed in a home invasion by a drugged-out person. He spent the first couple of years in a drunken haze but, now eight years later, he has turned his life around and become a best-selling author. He's still a recluse and prefers to ignore anything that happens in the semi-abandoned mansion at one end of the key.

Special Agent Kate Rush has resigned her job with the DEA after one final encounter with her supervisor Special Agent Lawrence Tyler, an incompetent agent always propped up by his father who is the Governor of Florida. She has gotten her Ph.D. and planned to write a cookbook featuring her grandmother's recipes. One problem: she doesn't know how to cook. When she is approached to do some off-the-books work for the DEA surveilling that same mysterious mansion, boredom makes her say yes.

There she meets Tick and uncovers lots more than she had imagined when they rescue a young girl who is being trafficked. Meanwhile, someone is attempting to blackmail Lawrence Tyler who wants one last big score before he is fired from the DEA and hopes discovering what is going on at Mango Key and the mansion will be it.

This story is told from Tick, Kate and Tyler's points-of-view. I had some problems with the book and the narration. First of all, the narrator wasn't very good at the female voices. But the big problem had to do with the text. Things that I think were meant to be humorous banter and teasing between Tick and his brother Pete and Kate and her best friend Sandy came off sounding mean and abrasive. 

 I also found the plot of the book a little disjointed. I'm not sure what the key mystery was supposed to be. If it was Tyler's being blackmailed, why was so much time spent on Kate and Tick? If it was supposed to be about the mystery of the goings-on at the compound on Mango Key, that plot thread just seemed to fizzle out with little resolution. 

I can't really recommend this one. I'm glad that both the Kindle and audiobook were purchased for very little money. 

Favorite Quote:

"Sometimes life out-and-out sucks. It doesn't mean it won't ever get better; it just means you have to work harder at making it right."

I bought this one February 3. 2021. You can buy your copy here.