Saturday 15 July 2017

Book Review: FATAL MISTAKE (Lexie Rogers #3) by Karen M Davis


Author: Karen M Davis
Publisher:
Simon & Schuster AU
Read:
July 2017
My Rating:🌟🌟🌟1/2


Book Description:

Detective Lexie Rogers is tough, smart and at the top of her game. She's seen it all, from bikies, blood and betrayal to drugs, deviants and deception ... and the violent knife attack that almost killed her as a young cop on the beat.

Lexie's sent on the job of a lifetime -- to go deep undercover, as beautiful Lara Wild, a drug distributor, to expose a huge dealing ring among Sydney's most treacherous criminals. What she discovers is that being undercover is the safest place to be, especially when you're a cop with target on your head, but one false move means she'll die. And creeping from the shadows is the darkness of her past, something she can never outrun.

Lexie knows she can't trust anyone -- but the trouble is, she's not even sure if she can trust herself.

My musings:

I was initially a bit hesitant to pick up Fatal Mistake when I found out it was the third book in a series, but am happy to say that this didn’t affect my reading pleasure or understanding of the characters or the story at all. Whilst there are many established dynamics between the detectives, they were portrayed in a way that I could quickly pick up the necessary background information. The author’s intimate knowledge of police procedures and dynamics within a team really stood out, which made the interactions between colleagues look authentic and believable. I was fascinated by the details concerning the dark seedy underbelly of crime and corruption in the city, and the undercover operation to bust an established drug ring. Scary stuff!

Fatal Mistake is a police procedural that centres around various different colleagues from a branch of the NSW police targeting organised crime, and is heavily character driven, which made for a nice change from other books that focus on one particular case. Lexie Rogers is the type of tough, feisty female character that really drives a storyline, and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know her. The undercover angle was a great way to showcase the danger Lexie faced in her daily job, and the people she was up against: bikies, drug dealers, hitmen, rapists and murderers. There were some scary characters there!  Readers who have read the previous books in the series would have been familiar with Lexie’s colleagues, who all seemed to have a rich history together – whilst I did not have the background knowledge, I soon worked out the different dynamics and enjoyed getting to know details of the various detectives’ lives.

Davis’ approach of showcasing different police operations within the same storyline, and letting several characters tell their tale, worked really well for me and added depth to the story. I loved how all the threads came together at the end, and how the tension mounted before the breath-taking finale. There were a couple of moments in the middle of the book that dragged a little bit for me, and I didn’t care much for the character of Berni , although I realise her POV was necessary to bring the story together in the end. However, the pace really picked up in the last quarter and more than made up for it. It’s great to read a police procedural set in Australia, in a city I have visited and could visualise really well. I also loved the armchair travel to Byron Bay, a place I love, even though this was a side of the town tourists usually don’t get to see. 

Summary:

Fatal Mistake is a fast-paced character driven Australian police procedural with a feisty female lead protagonist, which gives a unique insight into undercover operations fighting organised crime. Skilfully weaving together several different threads, the tension ramps up to cumulate in a breath-taking finale that left me stunned and slightly exhausted. Seeing that this is the third book in the series, I will definitely need to pick up the other two and find out what I have missed out on!



Thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster Australia for the free electronic copy of this novel and for giving me the opportunity to provide an honest review.



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