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Murder at Haven’s Rock
by
Kelley Armstron
It is part of the Haven's Rock #1 series and is a crime thriller in a Kindle edition Explore it on Goodreads or Amazon
Other books in this series include [books_series]
First in the Haven’s Rock crime thriller (and eighth in the Casey Duncan/Rockton series) series revolving around Casey Butler and Eric Dalton as they solve another murder in their new town. It’s been four years since City of the Lost, 1, and 18 months since The Deepest of Secrets, 7.
My Take
Murder at Haven’s Rock is all about greed, idealism, and violence with an unexpected ending.
It’s interesting that Yolanda is so against the owners being there while they’re building. Talk about dictatorship. Yeah, you can take it as read that Yolanda does NOT want Casey or Dalton anywhere near her building site.
Armstrong is using first person protagonist point-of-view from Casey’s perspective, and she sure appreciates Dalton’s easiness in letting her take the lead when they need her type of expertise. He’s got no problem with it. It also gives Casey the opportunity to note Dalton’s ease in winning people over.
It does sound as if Casey and Duncan have thought things out, making the town easier for their coming inhabitants. Scouting the land to ensure their solitude. I like that April will be there, and that their awful parents are gone! I can’t wait to read more about the town’s design. And those quadruple-paned windows!
Casey has been having revelations about her past, her childhood even as April is appreciating her diagnosis of autism, enabling her to understand more about her interactions with the world. Anders is having his own ah-ha moments.
Ohhh, I love that realization Casey notes about why she chose Dalton.
Jesus. That Yolanda. So prickly and belligerent. I do like that Yolanda and Penny want to give the clients what they want whereas Bruno just wants it all over with, even if they do skip a few things.
There is action, but it is character-driven with those flipping red herrings all over the place. She certainly had me going with that initial body. Bruno’s worries about his marriage is useful. That interaction with a loner with a wolf. Warnings. The worry about the end-of-job bonus. The lies. The so-many lies. My only niggle is that this is too similar to previous stories.
Share the credit; take the blame. And worry about the neighbors. And, ya know, I don’t really care, as I cannot wait for Haven’s Rock #2 to come out!
The Story
They do say curiosity kills the cat. And there is some curiosity raised about why some company will pay a year’s wages for three months work.
Casey and Dalton had expected to have Haven’s Rock all to themselves for a year. Oh well. Now they won’t even get a month. And they finally get to see their town, all because two people broke the rule about the forest.
The Characters
Thirty-five-year-old Casey Dalton had been a detective in Ontario before she exiled herself to Rockton. The thirty-four-year-old Eric Dalton, the former sheriff of Rockton, will be the sheriff of Haven’s Rock. And they’ve gotten married. They still have Storm, their Newfoundland tracking dog. Dr April Butler is Casey’s formerly estranged older sister, a neurosurgeon with autism, who seems to love being so isolated. She’s also gotten addicted to reading mysteries.
The new “Rockton” . . .
. . . is Haven’s Rock and still a sanctuary for those in need. Penny is the architect whose specialty is making a client’s dream work. The cheating, married Bruno is the engineer with civil and geological degrees; Maria is Bruno’s angry wife. The prickly Yolanda is the hard-nosed contractor and Émilie’s granddaughter who is convinced the idealistic Dalton and Casey are fleecing Gran. Petra is Yolanda’s cousin. Émilie’s money came from Big Pharma.
The building crew is a dream team of experts. Pierre is the carpenter as well as the construction crew’s medic. Sort of. Kendra is the plumber with experience in northern plumbing, who is pursuing her master’s in social work — she’s the on-site person with mental-health training. The manipulative, well-built Gunnar is the local lothario, the whiny Mary, and Nanette are part of the general crew. The Y Gang is all guys.
Will Anders, a former soldier with medical training and a specialty in conflict resolution, had been their deputy and will be again. Isabel, a former psychologist, had operated the Roc, the bar. Mathias had been Rockton’s psychiatrist. Raoul is Mathias’ wolf-dog. Kenny is their carpenter and the head of the old militia. He’s also been getting friendly with April. Phil had been the council liaison, a good administrator, and is dating Isabel.
“Lilith” has an amazing home. Nero is the wolf she raised from a pup. The paranoid “Mark”, a professor, has the camouflaged mining tent. Denise is Mark’s wife who stayed behind.
Dalton’s real parents had met in Rockton and stole out of town to make a life on the land. Dalton was their oldest son who was kidnapped; Jacob is the younger son.
The Cover and Title
The cover’s background is almost neon with its electric blue in the black of the sky and the orange, yellow, and pink sunset crossing the middle. Casey is in pants and a jacket, standing with her back to us atop one of the mountain ledges, a silhouette against the sky. Below are dark ripples of land. An info blurb is at the very top in white. The title takes up the rest of the top half in a gradated copper to black and back to copper. Level with Casey’s calves is a notice that this is a novel, in white. More white, gradating to black, is at the bottom in the author’s name.
The title is more than one Murder at Haven’s Rock.
