A great start to a new series featuring a truly intrepid heroine in journalist Geneva Chase. It's a good read.

Geneva Chase is a crime reporter and a good one. But to say she is flawed and damaged is an understatement. She has a problem with alcohol and a problem with men – three marriages and currently in love with a married man. She is barely holding on to the only job she could land with a small time paper in CT when a horrific crime occurs. Six people are found naked and hacked to death in a very rich and upscale community called Connor’s Landing. While the murders and the other crimes that are occurring in the town are a major part of the story Genie herself is the other part. She is tough and gutsy and in spite of all she has been through in life she is optimistic and barrels through adversity like it doesn’t exist. She tends to see the world through ‘vodka’ colored glasses but in spite of that she is also a surprisingly likeable character and I can’t wait to see more of her.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Poisoned Pen Press for an advance copy of Random Road, a debut novel introducing reporter Geneva "Genie" Chase.

Genie has a drink problem and it has made her almost unemployable so her job at the local paper in her home town of Sheffield, Connecticut is the last chance saloon. She is still a good reporter so she is all over the story when 3 40-something couples are found naked and hacked to death in a mansion in a gated community.

There is a crime and it does get solved but the main thrust of the novel is Genie's life and the mess she is able to make of it. In this case it isn't the bad news it could be. It is told in the first person and Genie's personality comes shining through. She is self aware and basically optimistic about life so she rattles through adversity, vodka-tonic and guilt in hand, grits her teeth and gets on with it. She is very likeable, especially when she's making stupid, drink induced decisions - it makes her human and easy to identify with.

I found some of it too schmalzy for my taste, in the vein of everything happens for a reason which you can learn from and live a better, more fulfilling life. It's trite and fallacious.

Random Road is a solid read and the force of Genie's character will hold your attention.

It’s a crime scene straight out of a nightmare, six bodies found naked and cut to ribbons. Reporter Geneva Chase works for a small town paper on the verge of folding, and she’s just inches away from ending her career in shame. An alcoholic who has blown more stories than she’s published, this may be her last chance to save her dying career. When her story is picked up by the AP, Geneva believes she may actually have a chance of resurrecting her career and her life. Now is she can just stay away from the booze and her married lover and not piss off a killer, she might just get a second chance. Gritty, snarky and scary