A well written thriller about a new widow struggling to cope in a new town and a creep who is taking kids. Nell uses her sleiuthing skills well. Small towns have a lot of secrets. A good read.

Mystery lovers will likely enjoy this story. I wasn't too keen on it. It just moved to slow for my tastes. Sorry. I am sure it will find it's target audience and do very well.

The start of this book was actually challenging to push through, not because of quality but because of the disturbing nature of it (disturbing in a good way, I guess?). That is a first for me. After that impactful beginning it tapers off and is very slow. Around half way it picks up again so that's good for me. I did guess who the perpetrator was before it was revealed and that's never fun. I would recommend this book to my friends who like mystery.

This is a tough one to rate. The beginning was brutal...difficult to read. Then it was slow. Very slow. At about 40%, it picked up somewhat and kept me reading. Unfortunately, I guessed “who dunnit” so the ending was very anticlimactic.

Bodies of children are being found all over Pelican Bay MS. Recently widowed Nell McGraw, editor of the Pelican Bay Crier, is trying to keep the story off the radar but when the murderer starts calling her in the. Idle of the night and threatening her children, she has to take the story onto the front page of the paper. Nell walks a fine line, trying to remain neutral but she is caught between the town's police chief and the county sheriff, both of whom want to bring the killer to justice. Picture perfect place setting and small town politics and the denouncement will leave you gasping.

I enjoyed this second book in the Nell McGraw mystery series. As a long-time ally of the LGBTQ community who is also an Alabama native,, I was especially pleased to see members of that community portrayed both realistically and with compassion. Since I don't like spoilers in reviews, I'll stop there. Although I have no experience of widowhood, I had the sense Nell's grief and the challenges she faces as a single mother were also accurately portrayed. I was slightly surprised I solved the primary mystery relatively early in the book, but that also made me much more tense as I neared the end of the book. Character development is one of Reid's most impressive talents, and I look forward to seeing what happens in Nell's next adventure in her small town on the coast of Mississippi!!

3.5 stars. The opening is pretty tough to take in so I think, in part, that it made me struggle to get into the rest of the story. The first part is pretty slow also, so that didn't help. Characterization is good, Nell is interesting. A completely competent mystery, just be prepared for the prologue.

**Thank you to the publisher and Net Galley in exchange of an honest review.**

After getting though the dark prologue and the first, slow reading, 25 - 30% of the book the story picked up and I enjoyed the rest of the book. With few clues to who the murderer is not even tried to guess, but let the story enfold and just followed Nell McGraw in her search. In the end I found this was a great read and I really liked it. I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thanks to NetGalley and Midnight Ink!

Perdition by R. Jean Reid is a highly recommended mystery.

Recently widowed Nell McGraw has decided to stay in the small Gulf town with her two children and continue to run the weekly paper, the Pelican Bay Crier, founded by her husband's grandfather. Not that it's all that easy when long-time Sheriff Hickson and relatively new Police Chief Shaun can't seem to get along or cooperate with each other. First a young girl is murdered and then a young boy. Is there a serial killer on the loose in this small Mississippi town and can law enforcement manage to cooperate with each other long enough to find the killer.

As a journalist, Nell needs to keep digging and asking questions to try and get as much information as she can. To make things worse, the killer has taken to calling Nell late at night, disguising his voice, to tell her where the bodies are or just to taunt her. To further her stress, Nell has one great cub reporter and one worthless one, and the sexist bully in the police department who threatens Nell got his charges dropped due to his father's connections. Adding to everything is the fact that keeping track of her teen children is now her sole responsibility.

The writing is very good and Reid keeps the reader guessing about the identity of the killer. Sensitive readers should note that the prologue in Perdition is very graphic, albeit a good hook to keep you reading. It takes place in the past and the reader is left wondering how it fits into the present mystery. The beginning of the novel moves at a fast pace but then the action/pace seems to slow down after that. Even though this a second book in the series, you needn't read the first book to enjoy this one.

I did have a few minor issues with Perdition. Nell should have just fired Carrie. If an employee constantly whines about doing her job to her boss and is incompetent at her job, then it is time for her to move on to something else. There is no reason Nell should have kept her around. Also many of the interactions with her kids, especially her daughter, became annoying. She tends to alternately worry about both of them obsessively, anticipate her daughter's poor reactions, or forgets them completely. Perhaps the constant driving her kids around is realistic, but mentioning it so much became tiring and seemed out of place in the small town setting where her kids would both be riding bikes or walking to/from school. And since everyone in town knows there might be a killer on the loose, other people would likely help pick them up and drop them off.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of the publisher/author.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2017/06/perdition.html
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2020784026

First of all, I would like to thank NetGalley once again for another spectacular book!

The book starts describing a series of abuses, violence and even a murder, leaving a child without his family several years ago.

Many years later, a black girl's body is found in the woods of a city, and although the authorities state that the girl has run away from home and had an accidental, the reporter Nell McGraw believes the girl has been murdered.

As soon as she starts to investigate, several murders start to happen in the city, all of them with sexual assaults. As if it couldn't get worse, one night Nell was woken up by her cellphone, and as she answered it, she had an unpleasant surprise: it was no one less than the murder.

She sees herself, then, involved with the murders, both as a witness and as a victim. She starts to worry about her children and her friends, and the murder turns out to be a surprise to everyone.

I must say I was able to discover the murderer of this plot, but I confess during many passages of the story I was in doubt about the murderers's identity.

To be really honest, I myself got scared of sleeping alone a couple of nights after I read the book, lol. I was afraid to receive the murderer's call!!!

I highly recommend this book, really. The story is very well constructed, Nell is a deep character, and the end is really surprising. A great book!

Please check my blog for more reviews: mypapertrips.wordpress.com

A warning that the beginning of this book is extremely raw and graphic. It then settles down but those first few pages almost put me off. Nell McGraw is a young widow, running her husband’s family’s newspaper. The setting is a small Mississippi gulf town, and several of the characters run to southern stereotypes.

This is the second in the series but I had no problems with not having read the first book. Nell is an interesting character, well drawn and fleshed out. She has a subtle sense of humor that I appreciated. And anyone who has raised teenagers will appreciate the dilemmas she faces. I will say she's a much more tolerant boss than I ever was. Carrie’s ass would have been out on the pavement.

This is a very engaging book. It moves at a nice clip. It's not a sophisticated mystery by any stretch, but I enjoyed it and that's the important part. I would definitely read future books in this series and intend to go back and read the first.

My thanks to netgalley and Midnight Ink for an advance copy of this book.

Nell, a widow with 2 children, runs the small Pelican Bay newspaper left to her upon her husband's death. There's seldom big news only sewer and water board meetings, editing recipes or small city events until murder comes to town. Soon events bring her to seeking answers as to who could be responsible. Fearing for her children and feeling the emotion of loss by town families she investigates until her own life is threatened.

<i> *I received this book from the publisher and NetGalley in return for a fair review.*</i>

This is both the second book in this series, the Nell McGraw series, and the second book with this author’s name on it. Which is important to note, the name part, because this is also the 13th book I’ve read by this author. The other 11 books (which includes two rereads) were put out under the J.M. Redmann byline.

This book here is a mystery – like all of Redmann/Reid’s books. Specifically one that stars Nell McGraw – a relatively recently widowed newspaper owner/editor and single mother of two children.

So, naturally, I was really eager to read this book, another mystery by an author I’ve rather enjoyed. I stress this because the prologue is kind of tough to get through. Because of the subject matter – very tough to get through. Sexual and physical abuse of two youngsters by a very bad man – their father. It is quite possible that if I hadn’t read and enjoyed (for the most part) 11 books by this author (under two different names) I might have stopped reading before I even got to the non-prologue part.

This is a good competent enjoyable little mystery. Solid characterization. Surprisingly there are even some background LGBT people – quite important to the story they are.

The mystery involves several murdered young children who had been found over a longish period of time in the small Mississippi town (well the outskirts of the town). The first one was put down as a unsolvable – she had just been in the water too long to determine if foul play was involved in her death (did she slip in by accident? Murdered? The evidence is no longer there). That was the young girl –I note because the rest of the murdered children were boys and at least one person thought that only boys were being targeted (for reasons).

It’s unfortunate when you meet and get to know someone before they are killed. Happened twice in this book – a third person is also talked about and meet but the reader doesn’t really get to know them before they die. Unfortunate in that I get to know them, feel them, get attached to them, and not want them to die. But die they did.

Several complications pop up in this book – 1) someone, probably the murderer, has taken to calling Nell late at night (or very early in the morning) – putting Nell on edge and stuff; 2) the local police forces are currently in something of a macho pissing contest when the story starts – the long time sheriff and the relatively new police chief do not really get along, both personally and professionally (for example: the sheriff set up a roadblock in the police chief’s jurisdiction and didn’t tell the chief that he was doing that); 3) one of the police officers that had popped up in the prior book, and is one of those kinds of people who really shouldn’t have been given the badge and uniform – ends up kicked off the force and blames Nell – adding more stress and complications to her life (since that officer, ex-officer, came within inches of physically attacking Nell and appears to be still hovering around the edges of her life, watching, waiting to attack again).

I liked the book though I had certain issues with it. A) couple of issues with word choice and formatting that I assume will not actually show up in the final published version (like Nell’s male child, Josh, once or twice gets referred to by the wrong name – once as Tom); B) Nell seemed to alternate between being annoyed with having a teenage daughter (anticipating her being bad and stuff), and forgetting she exists (several occasions finds the child locked out of the house because Nell simply forgot . . . well that she existed – constantly worrying about Josh, constantly forgetting her daughter existed unless she wanted to complain about her (to herself or others); C) this author seems to have a tendency to kill certain types of characters – when writing as Redmann and writing Lesbian fiction, it isn’t as . . . annoying, when writing mainstream ‘straight’ fiction as Reid – those kinds of deaths seem to be blinking neon exclamations and not in a good way. LGBT characters – dying for the growth of straight people/for the advancement of plot in straight books/television shows. Unfortunate. D) I can't really mention D. Because . . . spoiler reasons. Trying to be as vague as possible - some of the clues that were dropped in the book do not match up 'correctly'

Despite some of the things I’ve noted in this review, this was a good solid book that I enjoyed reading. I will note that it is better to read the first book in this series before reading this book here – for many reasons. Least of which, of the reasons, being the changing dynamic of the characters present in the series.

Rating: 3.88

April 19 2017

This was the second installment in the Nell McGraw series, and while I haven't read the first book, I never had the feeling I was missing something.

The prologue was unexpectedly shocking and may offend more squeamish readers, but it was very effective to draw my undivided attention - I raced through the first half in one sitting: a true page turner. The characters were well-drawn and a good mixture: some I liked immediately, while others took some time to warm to, and some remained disagreeable to the end. I appreciated how some characters changed during the book, or maybe more precisely how my view of them was changed with the turn of events.

Then in the second half the story stalled a bit. Every few pages Nell wondered about the whereabouts of her children, that she had to take them to/from some place and her insecurities about being a good single mother. While that was understandable as a part of her every day routine and as a still struggling to adjust widow, it slowed the story down repeatedly. The ending came as a surprise, but then again not so - or maybe I'm just spoiled from other stories.

My one-line conclusion: a page-turner thriller that pulls no punches and leaves me wanting for more.

A good classic whodunnit with a believable central character in Nell McGraw. What I particularly enjoyed was how well the story handled the stages of grief in losing a loved one, while keeping the plot moving and paced. It also examined the 'small-town' attitudes to anything other than heterosexual relationships. A good read overall and I would happily choose another Nell McGraw book in the future.

This book was rather good, even though it was quite dark. The beginning seemed to be a bit drawn out, but if you stick to it, the story becomes quite interesting and hard to put down. I found it to be well-written and the characters were well developed. This is a book I could read again and find something new each time I read it. And I do plan to read it again.

The prologue for this book was SO dark (and I'm okay with dark) that I almost didn't read the book. I'm really glad I did, though, because this was a good mystery featuring an engaging main character. The author does a great job of balancing the mystery plot with Nell's everyday life. Her reality of being a widow in a small town, trying to make friends and raise her kids informs everything in the book--but it doesn't take over the plot. I'll have to go back and read the first Nell McGraw book now, and I look forward to the next one.

(I'll cross-post to Amazon on pub date)

I really enjoyed the concept of this book. I only wish I had realized it was a sequel to another book. Though not reading the first book didn't hurt me to much in terms of understanding what was going on, I like to read books in order. I think if you enjoy thrillers you will enjoy this fast paced read.

A real page turner couldn't put it down.stayed up all night reading

I have always enjoyed a book that tells us the story not just of an individual but of a whole town and what hides beneath the veneer of civility. This is exactly what you get in Perdition and I loved sifting through the towns layers through the eyes of Nell.
Unfortunately my enjoyment was marred somewhat by the fact that I felt the identity of the killer was easy to guess very early on , which did spoil the suspense somewhat. However it didn't stop me thoroughly enjoying the rest of the book.