Author: Kelley Armstrong
Series: Haven's Rock (Book 1)
Publication: Minotaur Books (February 21, 2023)
Description: New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong’s Rockton Novels had one of the most unique towns in crime fiction. Murder at Haven's Rock is a spinoff, a fresh start... with a few new dangers that threaten everything before it even begins.
Haven’s Rock, Yukon. Population: 0
Deep in the Yukon wilderness, a town is being built. A place for people to disappear, a fresh start from a life on the run. Haven’s Rock isn’t the first town of this kind, something detective Casey Duncan and her husband, Sheriff Eric Dalton, know first-hand. They met in the original town of Rockton. But greed and deception led the couple to financing a new refuge for those in need. This time around, they get to decide which applicants are approved for residency.
There’s only one rule in Haven’s Rock: stay out of the forest. When two of the town's construction crew members break it and go missing, Casey and Eric are called in ahead of schedule to track them down. When a body is discovered, well-hidden with evidence of foul play, Casey and Eric must find out what happened to the dead woman, and locate those still missing. The longer Casey and Eric don’t know what happened, the more danger everyone is in.
My Thoughts: Casey Duncan and her husband Sheriff Erick Dalton are behind the founding of a new town for those on the run. It is a replacement for Rockton where the two met but which fell apart under the rule of a corrupt board. Haven's Rock isn't ready to open yet. It is filled with construction workers who don't actually know where they are or what they are really building.
Casey and Eric have had to come early because two people have disappeared. The srchitect and head engineer have both disappeared into the forest despite the one rule of the place: Don't go into the forest. When they get to the town, Yolanda, the head of the construction who happens to be a granddaughter of Casey and Eric's mentor and fellow investor Emilie, is both abrupt and abrasive and, while she wants her people found, doesn't want to slow down the construction to do it.
Casey and Eric's first search turns up the body a woman that they believe is the missing architect. However, once the body is back in town, it is determined that she is unknows to anyone in Haven't Rock. So now they have a body and still have two missing people.
Even though they scouted the area before they began to build this new refuge, Casey and Eric discoer that they aren't as alone in the Yukon as they had believed. They discover a man mining in secret as they are searching for their missing people. And they also discover a reclusive wildlife photographer who has a pet wolf.
They do eventually find Bruno who was the missing engineer, but he is badly injured from being pushed off a cliff. Even once they get Casey's sister into the settlement to provide medical services, he doesn't offer much information and dies before indicating whether or not he knows where the missing architect is.
Casey and Eric run all sorts of theories about who the killer is for the found woman and what sort of scheme the engineer was involved with and if he had a partner who is hiding in plain sight among the construction crew.
This was an engaging start to a new mystery series with one of the most unique settings in fiction. I look forward to reading more in this series.
Favorite Quote:
Favorite Quote:
Fake it 'til you make it, and baffle them with bullshit. Those are Dalton's keys to successfully convincing a town that he's in charge. The reality is a whole lot different.I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.
OOh nice! Glad to see this one is just as good as the previous Rockton books! It's bit weird going into a new series that's still virtually the same series but in a new location. I'm sure I'll have the same amount of fun! Nice review!
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