Anything for You is book three of the Valerie Hart detective series. I had not read the preceding two novels, but the author does such a nice job of weaving character history and backstory into the text that I didn’t in any way feel like I was missing out on necessary information.

The narrative begins with a couple driving to a romantic rendezvous in the country. It is clear from the beginning that the actual encounter will wind up being something quite different - and indeed it is, with the ending involving not sex but murder.

We then shift to an entirely different scene. An elderly male insomniac, up late reading, finds himself facing an intruder through a window. The excellent alarm system in his son’s upscale home goes off, turning on the exterior lights and chasing the trespasser away but the police are still called. As the cops do a routine inspection of the now quiet scene, they receive a second call sending them to the house next door. What they find there is the opposite of the peaceful setting they just left.

In this elegant home, in the tastefully decorated master bedroom, a man has been brutally murdered. Lying just a few feet away, desperately clinging to her phone and her life, lies his wife. The investigators quickly establish that this is the abode of Adam Grant, a well-known San Francisco prosecutor and his wife Rachel. Their daughter Elspeth is missing.

Homicide detective Valerie Hart almost had a one night stand with the deceased several years earlier. Their drunken kisses and sloppy groping never actually led to sex since the married Adam had a last minute attack of conscience and called a halt to the proceedings. Valerie knows that she should remove herself from the case due to her personal connection to the victim, but she has a storied sexual history, along with something of a (past) promiscuous reputation  and doesn’t want to air this bit of dirty laundry for the amusement of her colleagues. She determines to move forward and work the case, confident she won’t encounter a conflict of interest.

She does quickly encounter Elspeth, who had been staying overnight at a friend’s house, and then meets Adam’s wife Rachel at the hospital. She’s impressed with both of them, beautiful ladies who handle this horrific change to their lives with dignified sorrow and grace. And she’s embarrassed at having to comb through their home and their pasts, looking for clues as to who did this and why. Adam’s job seems to be the likeliest motive for the crime and indeed initial forensic evidence points to Dwight Jenner, an ex-con Adam helped to convict earlier in his career. Valerie is nothing if not thorough however, and her perseverance and curiosity pay off. Hidden in a cabinet in Adam’s basement darkroom within a stack of plain manilla envelopes are nude photographs taken in the kitchen and bedrooms of the Grant house featuring a sexy blonde with her face obscured. A woman who just happens to match the description of Jenner’s latest lady love. But why would pictures of her be in the Grant house? Discovering the answer to that question leads Valerie down a dark and dangerous path through prostitution, child sexual abuse, and vengeance.

Fans of mystery novels will recognize Valerie’s hard-boiled detective persona. She’s the type of cop who eats and sleeps the job, whose put-upon spouse has to deal with her moody, broody compulsiveness regarding her cases, and whose proverbial soft interior is buried beneath layers of cynicism and sarcastic wit. The author also does little to paint nuance onto her character or indeed onto any of the characters we are introduced to, except the villain. They all have secrets, some of them fairly large, but they are all pretty straightforward in spite of them and the only twists and turns here occur in the plot.

Even that isn’t very curvy. This is a methodical, detailed police procedural where solid investigating and following hunches lead to a stunning but well set up ending. The dénouement did surprise me, but I could look back and see how the trail inevitably led to this conclusion. I love when the author can make the resolution a revelation but also show you how the clues were pointing in that direction all along and that definitely happened here. I always find that kind of closure deeply satisfying.

In fact, for fans of detective fiction Anything for You is satisfying overall. While the story doesn’t transcend genre or push this category of fiction to new limits, it does a decent job of meeting its standards.

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Read a third of this before abandoning it. Just getting through the gruesome first chapter had me doubting I would like this, but I hate to give up on an ARC when I’ve committed to reviewing it, but in this case I had no desire or the stomach to continue.

This was my first by this author but it will be my last. I didn’t like any of the characters, not even the detective Valerie and her husband Nick. The writing did not seem realistic to me as far as the females were crafted. I really don’t believe working policewomen have the time or energy to wallow in sexual fantasies, The raw and offensive language reeked “male” and personally there is nothing as off-putting as a wife and mother with a potty-mouth.

I apologize for not finishing this. There’s just too many good books waiting for me to waste my time on this trash. Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to voice my opinion, but this was not for me.

I started off not knowing if this book was for me, but I always like to give a book a chance and get at least a quarter through it, then i couldn't put it down. A real who dunnit with a twist, not the ending I expected.
We are presented with two murders affecting two different women, not knowing that their lives are entwined. This book is written from two perspectives, one being the investigator Valerie and the other Sophia whoa has murdered her pimp.
We also get a view into Valerie's personal life and some history in Sophia's upbringing and why she is who she is.
Overall a good read, good mystery with a great twist at the end

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me a complimentary copy of ANYTHING FOR YOU by Saul Black in exchange for my honest review.***

High class hooker Sophia kills her john. Elsewhere Adam is murdered, his wife Rachel, also stabbed survives. Valerie is charged with investigating the crime and hides she once cheated with Adam. Sophia’s story connects with the murder in a surprising ways.

Saul Black creates an intricate mystery spanning from Philadelphia to San Francisco with a few twists and turns I never saw coming. Told from Valerie’s third person point of view, readers will see she’s a cop who is ethically challenged with her failure to disclose her one-night-stand with Adam to drinking too much to questionable investigation tactics like flirting with suspects not as an investigative tactic, but in a sexual manner for her own pleasure.

My biggest criticism of ANYTHING FOR YOU is that I constantly was aware a man had written the book, mostly by the way he described how women think about sex. I’ve never met a woman who calls her vagina a cunt, for example. Most of the sexual references appeared early in the book, and if I wasn’t reviewing an ARC I might have abandoned the book. I’m not a prude, the content didn’t bother me nor the words. My issue was the references didn’t feel feminine, not that women are monolithic or stereotypes.

The ending of ANYTHING FOR YOU, while unexpected, felt unsatisfying. Still, the mystery is complex and well laid out.

ANYTHING FOR YOU will appeal to many readers.

WHAT A THRILLER! I have not been sucked in to a book this way in a very long time. Thank you netgalley and Saul Black for allowing me the sneak peak at this!

As far as mysteries go, I really liked the one we had in ANYTHING FOR YOU. I thought that Black built up a good series of events that all came together nicely, and I liked that we got to see it all fall into place both through Valerie's investigation, but also by following this mysterious other woman and her background. In fact, it was the perspective chapters involving the mystery lady that I liked best, and I thought that it was slowly revealed in an effective way. My bigger issues with this book were, sadly, with Valerie herself. I love Valerie, no question about that, but I worry that as she continues to move through her life that her characterization is remaining static. For example, I definitely understand that she has even more stressors put on her in this one (mostly whether or not she is ready to start a family with her husband Nick), but I was sad to see that these plot points were seeming to teeter towards bad behaviors that we've seen before. I'm not as interested in seeing Valerie potentially make terrible decisions about her life over and over and over again. I want to see her character grow as her series goes on. So because of that, I found myself worried and frustrated that this was an indicator of where Valerie is going to go: that is, remain in one place.

I enjoyed a fair amount about ANYTHING FOR YOU and I am definitely going to go on. But I worry that Valerie Hart may not move and grow as the series goes on. I guess we will have to see, as I will be checking back in with her whenever she's ready to go on her next case.

I really wasn't a fan of the writing of this book and I truly TRULY tried to finish this book, but I couldn't.
The words were brass and crude and I just can't read a book where a woman refers to her privates as the C word.
If it wasn't for the harsh and crude writing, I probably would have finished...it was just hard to read for me. The premise of the story was good though.

I had no idea this book was part of a series however that didn't stop me from enjoying it. I actually want to read the first two books now!
The book starts like any good police drama, with a murder. A good who done it! Then you also have a once self destructive detective, seems to be a typical roll in novels. And why not they make for a good story! I normally don't enjoy a book that goes back in time but this book did it fabulously! I loved the three parts to the book. You were able to get a good look into why Rachel became Rachel. This book has a Pretty Woman meets Jason. I do however have to admit that at 40% I had an idea who the killer was however I didn't know the second twist as easily.
I love this authors style and I will be looking for more books written by him.

Just like any good series crime novel, the books starts with a shocking murder. The police come to investigate and while we think we know what the situation is, it quickly changes. Because everyone has a past or secrets they keep. And often times, just as in real life, someone does not just get murdered. Without there being something sinister lurking just below the surface.
Anything for You starts out with different scenes from crimes that I found a hard time piecing together at first. And even when I started to understand the connection, Black kept me guessing for a long time on how any of these things were connected.
I’ve noticed in some reviews that readers found the novel to be too sexual and I do agree that some of the sex scenes or details put in there were slightly gratuitous, but to each his own, right? And there really weren’t that many of them. They just stood out.
Sex scenes aside, the story was fairly standard issue for me throughout the first half. But during the second half, the tone of the novel changed for me and that’s when I started to connect more with the characters. And once I was invested in the characters, things really started to get interesting for me and the pages started turning faster and faster.
In conclusion, I do think Saul Black’s crime series is extra. Thing Karen Slaughter, one of my favorite crime fiction writers. She still writes series fiction for the most part, but the details and characters are a notch above. Or maybe several notches above, she is really at the top of her game. I’d have to read a bit more of Black’s work before I could make an apples to apples comparison.
Special thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advanced e-galley in exchange for my honest review. This one is out November 5, 2019. Pre-order your copy!

DNF. I just couldn’t do it. Totally not for me. Too crude and just made me feel gross.

I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Competently plotted thriller with an interesting (though imperfectly characterized: she's not very believable as a woman, at times) protagonist. Saul Black's style remains lively despite being definitely toned down in comparison to his superior Last Werewolf trilogy.

This one started off really strong for me and the writing style was great, but I felt like it drug on too long for a bit. The last 25% picked up quite a bit again but I struggled to stay interested. However, I didn't realize this was part of a series when I started reading so that may be part of the reason I didn't feel as connected to the characters.

This is my first book by this author. Sadly I did not like it. This story has strong sexual content. However, that wasn't the problem and it's nothing I can't handle. The whole concept of the story was slow burn. The twist was great but by the time I got there I was already over it.

Thank you at Netgalley and St. Martin'a Press for this digital ARC in exchange for my honest review

I think this was not a bad mystery or "whodunit" book.  It was a big case and I think there were some great twists and turns in it for me.  The author goes into detail in the book, so this book is for adults only in my opinion.  I still enjoyed this book for the most part.  Valerie Hart is a good character for a detective.  "This book was given to me for free at my request from NetGalley and I provided this voluntary review."

Usually, I can read anything and enjoy it, but I will say this book has some triggers including rape and sexual abuse. I personally don’t really need to hear the graphic details, but if you like things more explicit you will enjoy this book. I’ve always thought that great writers can use more than vulgarity to describe a story, and this book definitely overuses the word “cunt”.

Anything For You has sex, lies, murder, and a great twist. A San Francisco prosecutor is murdered and his wife is left barely alive in a horrific attack. Valerie Hart, a detective, is put on the case and she realizes she’s connected to Adam, the victim. There are many secrets and twists, and Valerie is forced to confront her past. The story flips between points of view and you get good details about what’s going on, but still are left with surprises.

I am happy that I had the chance to review this book, but it wasn’t necessarily a great fit. As a woman, I think Saul Black writes what he wants a woman to be thinking, but not what she actually would be thinking or saying. Not that this is a rule, but women generally don’t think about themselves as they were written in this book. I like stories that can seem real, and this one missed the mark for me. If the main character was a male, perhaps this style of writing would be a better fit.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for the opportunity to read this book. While I wouldn’t recommend it, everyone likes something different so this may be for you.

I thank you for the opportunity to read and review this book. This author was new to me and I was not let down. It was a great story and very well written. The characters were easy to relate to and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I highly recommend this to everyone!!

A few weeks ago I discovered that Saul Black is actually Glen Duncan. Under his own name, Duncan wrote "The Last Werewolf, which is an amazing story, beautifully written, and full of existential angst. Upon this discovery about Black I knew I must request "Anything for You."

This is the third book in the Valerie Hart series and I will read the first two books. Rich, successful attorney Adam Grant is murdered and his wife Rachel is injured during a home invasion. Fingerprints and DNA tell the police the killer is Dwight Jenner who has just been released from San Quentin where he'd been incarcerated for six years for participating in an armed robbery of a gas station. Valerie Hart, a Detective with the San Francisco Homicide Department is the police lead in hunting down the now missing Dwight Jenner.

The writing is wonderful, the sense of place is perfect, and what appears to be a routine crime novel actually explores the depths of human nature and what people will do to survive in challenging circumstances.

This book is not for those who are squeamish about graphic sex and violence. But, the sex and violence are not gratuitous, rather an important part of this truly compelling book.

"Anything for You" is literary crime fiction at its best.

Boring, unengaing, painful are just a few of the words I would use to describe this book. It is a dull soft porn book masquerading as a crime novel. One can figure out in the first half of the book who done it, but the author drags out the second half to te point that it is a good book for anyone suffering from insomina ( as a couple characters in the book). As it has received a number of favorable reviews it is obviously appealling to some, but I found it an utter waste of time.

I received a free Kindle ARC courtesy of Net Galley and the publisher. It was with the understanding that I would provide an honest review and post it on Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon and my review blog. I also posted it to my Facebook page.

This book is 3rd in the series. I hadn't read the others so didn't know what to expect. This book wasn't my taste. It was rude, offensive and sexually vile.

On a hot summer night, a watchful neighbor locks eyes with an intruder and unwittingly alerts the police to a vicious crime scene next door: a lavish master bedroom where a man lies dead. Next to him, his wife is bleeding out onto the hardwood floor, clinging to life.

The victim, Adam Grant, was a well-known San Francisco prosecutor—a man whose connection to Homicide detective Valerie Hart brings her face-to-face with a life she’s long since left behind. Adam’s career made him an easy target, and forensic evidence points towards an ex-con he put behind bars years ago. But while Adam’s wife and daughter grapple with their tragic loss, Valerie uncovers devastating clues that point in a more ominous direction. Lurking in the shadows of the Grants’ pristine life is a mysterious blonde who holds the key to a very different—and much darker—story.

As Valerie struggles to forge a new path for herself, the investigation forces her to confront the question: can we ever really leave our pasts behind?

The suspense was great, but it was a very difficult book to finish. There was an overuse of violence, so I don't think this book is for everyone.

Thank you #NetGalley for the ARC of Anything for You by Saul Black
Pub Date: 05 Nov 2019