THE GIRL IN THE MOSS (Angie Pallorino #3) by Loreth Anne White-a review

Amazon.com / Amazon.ca / Amazon.uk /B&N / Chapters Indigo /

ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date June 12, 2018

A shallow grave exposes deadly secrets as bestselling author Loreth Anne White brings her thrilling series of romantic suspense to its shocking conclusion…

Disgraced ex-cop Angie Pallorino is determined to make a new start for herself as a private investigator. But first, she and her lover, newly promoted homicide detective James Maddocks, attempt a quiet getaway to rekindle a romance struggling in the shadows of their careers. The peace doesn’t last long when human skeletal remains are found in a nearby mossy grove.
This decades-old mystery is just what Angie needs to establish her new career—even as it thrusts her and Maddocks back into the media spotlight, once again endangering their tenuous relationship.

Then, when Angie’s inquiry into the old crime intersects with a cold case from her own policing past—one that a detective on Maddocks’s new team is working—the investigation takes a startling twist. It puts more than Angie’s last shot at redemption and a future with Maddocks at risk. The mystery of the girl in the moss could kill her.

•••••••

REVIEW: THE GIRL IN THE MOSS is the third instalment in Loreth Anne White’s contemporary, adult ANGIE PALLORINO murder/mystery/suspense series focusing on former Vancouver Police Department sex crimes Detective Angie Pallorino, and her partner/lover Detective Sergeant James Maddocks. THE GIRL IN THE MOSS can be read as a stand alone without any difficulty. Any important information from the previous story lines is revealed where necessary but I recommend reading the series in order for cohesion especially as it pertains to our heroine’s back story.

Told from several third person perspectives including Angie Pallorino THE GIRL IN THE MOSS picks up several months after THE LULLABY GIRL (#2) and finds our heroine without purpose. Fired for going rogue as a detective with the Vancouver Police Department sex crimes unit, Angie Pallorino is working towards her PI certificate but the fame of notoriety is wreaking havoc with her current job. While on vacation, Angie and her lover Detective Sergeant James Maddocks will stumble upon a shallow grave believed to be the burial place of a young woman thought missing and drowned twenty-four years earlier. A phone call from the deceased woman’s family finds our heroine back on the hunt for answers, a hunt that leads Angie to a small town of hunters, lies, and closed door secrets. What ensues is a complex investigation and the detective work of one woman, as she battles her own personal demons, and the town residents who are desperate to keep buried sins of the past.

Meanwhile, Detective Sergeant James Maddocks offers up an ultimatum to the woman he loves. Unable to let go of the past, Angie struggles with the possibility of rejection including by the man that calls to her heart. James and his fellow detectives begin analysing a series of cold case files, files that will lead back to Angie’s current murder investigation.

THE GIRL IN THE MOSS is a mosaic of details and revelations from potential killers, to puzzling clues, clandestine lovers and secret lives. Old wounds will be opened, and families will be destroyed as one woman must come to terms with the necessity and determination to bring justice for a woman long thought buried and gone.

Loreth Anne White writes with purpose; an architect of amazing talent as her story line slowly gathers the momentum towards the final reveal. THE GIRL IN THE MOSS is a story of suspense and mystery; secrets and lies; violence and murder but ultimately a story of family and loss.

Reading Order and Previous Reviews
The Drowned Girls
The Lullaby Girl
The Girl in the Moss

Copy supplied by Netgalley

Reviewed by Sandy