In Jennifer Greer's A Desperate Place, her two main characters could not be more different: Whit, mother of two, tragically widowed, and a transplanted newspaper reporter that contrasts with Katie, cancer survivor, married to a lawyer, and a medical examiner who works for the coroner. However, it's the women's commitment to their friendship and working around their differences that makes this novel so special. Centered in Oregon, influential individuals are dying (or are they being murdered) under strange circumstances. Katie and Whit work together, each staying loyal to their professions and their friendship, to determine the cause of these strange deaths. It's a fabulous first novel, and I hope there are more adventures of Katie and Whit coming! I'm now a big fan of Ms. Greer.

This story was a little too slow for me. I really like the idea behind the story, but I just had a hard time relating to the characters and couldn’t commit. It also seemed to jump around too much between the main characters past and present without much explanation. I really wanted to like this one :(

Reporter Whit McKenna and her best friend, medical examiner Katie Riggs come together when actress Niki Francis is found dead in a shallow grave. Whit needs some support after the loss of her husband and her friend Katie provides both a shoulder, and insight into the murder. At first it seems the victim was targeted because of her celebrity status, but two more bodies put that theory on ice. Together the two friends work to uncover a killer while trying not to become victims themselves. It’s refreshing to read a book that makes women the heroes, not the targets, and while more and more books are starting to explore this dynamic, Greer does it particularly well