the characters and the action, wondering how they missed the first book. The story is set in central California and reflects the unique geography and culture of the area, but the story is all Nikki from start to finish -- the places she goes, the people she finds, and how she feels about everything.
Nikki owns a bookstore along with Bartleby, the bookstore’s normally social resident feline. She rides a motorcycle, so she has no trouble finding parking spots where ever she goes. Her “significant other” Ethan is an adjunct professor on a tenure track at Cal. He wants their relationship to grow and progress; Nikki just wants to make it to tomorrow. She tells herself that she really is not ready for a long-term relationship. In truth, she might be fine without Ethan, but she would not be the same; she needs him more than she knows.
Nikki’s current assignment, a simple request for information, nothing illegal had happened, somehow turns into a very complex, and of course, dangerous situation. She ventures beyond the scope of the original request but is compelled to finish what she started. Readers enthusiastically go along for the wild ride with her.
“One Got Away” is a compelling adventure where everyone has little secrets and everyone is a bit deceitful. The plot is deliberate, focused, and filled with the unexpected right up to the frantic end. I received a review copy of “One Got Away” from S. A. Lelchuk and Flatiron Books. My advice is to plan your reading time carefully, once you start on this journey with Nikki, you will not stop until you reach the last page.

Another outstanding book about badass Nikki Griffin! She basically has my dream job, a used bookseller by day and a PI by night. She is a female advocate and takes down men who aren’t playing nice with their spouses.

In this book, she was hired by a family, to investigate someone who was blackmailing them. Sparks fly between her and the man and question, when three goons show up in his hotel room and stuff him in a suitcase. Nikki needs to find out what is there motive and a way to stop from killing him.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book as the twists and turns kept coming. If you haven’t checked out Save Me From Dangerous Men yet. I would highly recommend you read that one first for a better understanding of Nikki.

Twists and turns are the watch word of this story. Hired to look into one Dr Geoffrey Coombs who somehow defrauded the matriarch of a wealthy family. As she and the good doctor lock horns Geoffrey has quite a few tricks up his sleeve. He owes money and the people he owes play very rough. Along the way Nikki finds herself relying on a boy who observes and outwits better that the adults. A fun read and a quick ride. Happy reading

Thanks to NetGalley and Flat Iron Books for my arc of this title.

One Got Away is a mystery set around Nikki Griffin, a bookstore owner who moonlights as a Private Investigator. In this book Nikki is hired by the family of a wealthy SF matriarch to find the man who defrauded their mother.

Overall I thought the story was a good one that kept me guessing. However this one was a little too violent for me. It felt a little gratuitous and not really necessary to advance the story along.

I did however really enjoy the Northern California setting and think the author does a good job describing the various locations that the story takes place in.

While I enjoyed the first book in this series, One Got Away didn't really hold my interest, which was unfortunate. Basically, bookstore owner and private investigator Nikki Griffin is asked by a society family to track down a conman who has entangled himself with the family matriarch. However, this family has its own closet of skeletons and there's more to the matriarch than meets the eye. The story just got tedious in places, and I don't like that when reading a thriller.

I was given this book to review by Netgalley, I had to order the first one before I could read this one, love love this series. Nikki is such a bada!! She is so smart and tough, fights For the underdogs and the innocent ones. She is always getting herself into some bad spots but always comes out on top, love her friend Buster who will do almost anything for her. Highly recommend this series!!!!!

Nikki, our heroine of One Got Away, is a flawed, damaged, badass PI who plays by her own set of rules.

The characters and their interactions were my favorite part of this book. They’re unique, interesting, funny, and thoroughly entertaining.

The plot gives us lots of action, along with surprisingly poignant moments full of insight. At times we can’t look too closely at the details without lifting eyebrows at the implausibility, but it all works for the story.

One Got Away is the second Nikki Griffin novel. For the most part, I think it works fine as a stand-alone read, though Nikki’s many complexities are better understood if you’ve read the first book.

Now that is what I call an excellent book. Nikki is one kick ass gal. Her bookstore sounds amazing. But her investigating is pure adrenaline. From the posh upper crust to the worst of the bad guys the characters are well developed and seem real. We get glimpses of Nikki's personal life but the focus is on righting wrongs. She takes a job for a dysfunctional posh family that turns to be nothing like it was presented. I like how she deals with each player as she hunts for answers. I was totally engrossed in the story. Well Done and thoroughly enjoyed.

Another entertaining page turner by SA Lelchuk. Nikki Griffin is back stronger than ever. I was so excited to hear about the release of ONE GOT AWAY after reading and Loving Save Me From Dangerous Men. In this second book, we are taken along in an action packed adventure AGAIN with Nikki's hunt to find a con artist who has defrauded one of the wealthiest families in San Francisco. Nothing what as it seems and this book was packed with twists and turns that will keep you flipping pages.

I highly recommend thi second instalment in the Griffin series and already look forward to the next one.

I'm a sucker for a good PI story. It's 4:06 a.m. and I just finished reading this action-packed book with a badass heroine with a very strong moral sense. Nikki Griffin stands up to protect the abused with a passion and skill unexpected in a bookseller. Hired by big pharma family to protect their aging mother from a manipulative con artist, Nikki soon discovers nothing is as it seem except she is headed down a very dangerous path. Highly recommended although you might lose some sleep.in your rush to finish it.

This was a fun book. It is the second book in the series. I somehow missed reading the first book, and will definitely be going back and catching up with it. I received an ARC from NetGalley and the thoughts and opinions about the book are solely my own.

I enjoyed reading this fast-paced book. It is about a kick-butt PI (Nikki), who is also the owner of a book store. She is hired by an extremely wealthy family to follow a man that they think is conning their mother. He disappears and she has to follow his trail until she locates him.

The book has a lot of twists and turns. It is full of adventure, action, some romance (not a lot), bad guys, fights, and a cute little helper (hopefully we will see more of him in future books). You get the idea. There is a lot going on but it isn't so complicated that it is hard to read. I think you will enjoy it. I hope we will see more from this author!

Thank you to @flatiron_books for gifting me an eARC of this book! 💗

One Got Away is the second Nikki Griffin book and follows Nikki, a P.I./detective/hit woman, who has been hired by a wealthy family to follow someone they think is stealing money from them and blackmailing them. As you can expect, the story becomes a lot more complicated than that!

I hadn’t read the first Nikki Griffin book, but you absolutely do not need to have read it to read One Got Away. I never felt like I was missing any of the details, and I think Lelchuk does a great job of reintroducing characters to keep everyone on the same page.

This is a fast-paced thriller/mystery/action book, which is definitely not my favorite type of book. However, if you like action movies and can handle a bit of gore, you will love this book! The characters are interesting and well-developed, the plot moves quickly, and there are several action scenes scattered throughout the book.

I personally only rated it three stars because I don’t love to read action scenes, and I found some of the descriptives to be a bit gory for me (one scene in particular — whoa!). But, I loved Nikki and I especially enjoyed reading the scenes surrounding the Johansson family. That’s what kept me sucked in.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of One Got Away.

I read the first book in the series and though I liked the premise and the character of PI Nikki Griffin, there had been elements I didn't enjoy as much as I had hoped.

I was pleased when my request was approved, though, because I was apprehensive about the second book in the series but I'm glad to say One Got Away has reestablished my faith in the series.

PI Nikki Griffin is back on the job. Hired to look into a con man by the son of a wealthy, famous and privileged family in San Francisco, what seems to be a simple job unravels quickly to include family secrets, blackmail, sexual trafficking, and a young boy in need of an ally and friend.

At the same time, her personal life is going well. Her bookstore is booming with readers. Her brother is healthy and considering his own entrepreneurial pursuits. Her steady boyfriend, Ethan, is the same intelligent, kind and generous partner most women would dream of having.

And, Nikki is still her kickass self, protecting the innocent and vulnerable, throwing punches first (sometimes) and asking questions later.

Are there scenes that might push your disbelief meter to the edge?

Sure, but the author handles the scenes deftly, skirting the line between believability and hard-to-believe carefully.

It's also nice to see Nikki interacting and working with her allies; in this sequel, readers get to see Buster in action.

The best parts, in my opinion, are when Nikki deals with matters close to home; caring for her new sidekick, Mason, and doling out the proper justice to his father; spending time with her brother, and unraveling the tangled, dramatic threads of the Johannessen family.

It's rare when I like the second book better than the first, but this time, I feel it applies to One Got Away.

I really enjoyed Nikki's second adventure in the series and look forward to the next book, hopefully with more of her brother and Mason in it.

Bookstore owner Nikki Griffin can find you a copy of A Wrinkle in Time. She can recommend a good book based on your favorite. She can talk Steinbeck and Hemingway. And she can hunt down a missing person or find a blackmailer with nothing more than a phony VIN number and a couple of calls to friends. Whether she’s working as a bookseller or private investigator, she is not to be trifled with.

When Martin Johannessen hires Nikki to look into his mother’s dalliance, she is skeptical. An old money family, the Johannessens wouldn’t go out of their way to draw attention to themselves. But Martin mentions that maybe this man has been taking advantage of his mother and her generosity, so Nikki agrees to do a little digging. She talks to Martin’s siblings for more information, and then se follows the man when he heads our of San Francisco.

She picks up his trail in Monterrey, and just as things get even more complicated, Martin calls her back to San Francisco to fire her. He explains that the situation resolved itself, and her P.I. services are no longer necessary. But Nikki disagrees, and she goes around him to the matriarch herself to get re-hired to jump back in the fray. With little more information than a Mercedes VIN number, Nikki gets some help from a friend with experience in the car theft business, and she makes her way to all the answers she needs.

Coming up against stupid crooks, misogynists, lowlifes, narcissists, career criminals, and genuinely dangerous men, Nikki keeps her wits about her and uses her brains as well as her fists (and a small arsenal) to stay alive and find a sort of frontier justice in her fight against these bad men. Careful to hurt only those who deserve it, Nikki stays true to herself and her values while maneuvering through levels of deception, crime, and manipulation.

S.A. Lelchuk’s One Got Away is more than a taut P.I. novel. It’s the story of an anti-hero, a woman who sets out to avenge the wrong done to her and her brother by setting wrongs right for others. This is only the second novel in the Nikki Griffin series, but it’s already destined for the screen.

I really enjoyed One Got Away. Griffin is a strong woman who doesn’t shy away from difficult situations or dangerous people, which makes some of these scenes difficult to read. But the writing is excellent, and seeing Griffin go after her own personal retribution is gratifying. It’ not perfect, and it’s brutal in places, but it’s also enjoyable (if you have a strong stomach), and sprinkled liberally with moments of genuine warmth and literary references. .

Egalleys for One Got Away were provided by Flatiron Books through NetGalley, with many thanks.

I read book 2 first (this book), but I loved the character of Nikki Griffin so much that I had to go put book 1 on hold at the library immediately!

I love Nikki as a character. She is tough and resolute in her beliefs but soft hearted when warranted.

When Nikki is hired by the elite Johannessen family, she thinks she is just tracking down a conman who targeted a very wealthy elderly woman. But soon she is pulled into a web of secrets and danger that she handles in her smart and tenacious manner. Plus her young sidekick in this one was a stellar secondary character and I hope he shows up in book 3 (please tell me there is a book 3!).

This is a fast paced action crime thriller that is a fight between good and bad and sometimes lands in the murky middle. I blazed through this book as I found it wildly entertaining.

Content Warnings: Addiction, Sex Trafficking, Death, Violence

The best thing about this book is its speed, and snappy interaction between the characters. S.A. Lelchuk's One Got Away is a thriller, the second in a series which clearly is being groomed to go far and long, and I daresay - seems to have potential.

Nikki can clearly remember the experiences in her earlier escapade, and is beginning to settle into life with her almost-boyfriend, Ethan, when she gets her second assignment. On the face of it, the case seems uncommonly domestic and while it raises an eyebrow from her, she decides to take it. It soon snowballs into something she could never have imagined - and, in this case, neither could I, the reader.

The story meanders quite a bit - and in quite the most delicious sort of way, reminding me of long-forgotten Chandlers and the days of gumshoe detectives. She plods along, finding one link after another, and slowly, laboriously but definitely, making her way up the food chain to find the apex predator that's behind all she now finds herself a part of. What starts off as a domestic squabble soon turns into something far more social (!), and the more she digs, the deeper she finds herself - no surprises there.

What set this book apart from some others of its genre was its easy read, and easier flowing interactions. It made it very easy - and likely - to want to follow Nikki, to find out what's going on. She and Buster are a force to reckon with, and it was somewhere during the second half that it began reminding me - repeatedly so, I must add - of the earliest Reacher stories.

The first book in this series had been favorably compared to Jack Reacher, and that Nikki was a soon-to-be female Reacher. While that book was not nearly as cleanly presented, this one turns out better at that. It nicely conjures up an image of a lone, persistent PI, who will simply not stop. The situations and locations are well presented - locales far outside of normal day-to-day life for most of us, and that again added to the Reacher-like persona. The deserted roads, the desolate motels, the decrepit rooms, the lowlifes eyeing her lasciviously - all made for good build-up to the confrontation you're sure is coming.

What eventually detracted me from the perfect image were two things.

I mentioned earlier about the easy-flowing conversation. The problem with imagining such an easy-flowing conversation is it doesn't seem to belong between adversaries. Folks who are keen on killing each other don't talk so much, and definitely not so smoothly. Normally, when you read about difficult conversations, a good author will try and introduce delays in responses from both sides, making it seem like a troubled, and pained effort to make conversation - when both parties would rather just talk with their hands or their guns. You'd find at least responses buffered with thoughts, or descriptions, or - at the very least - not provide long winding and descriptive responses at all. Not so here.

I went back and checked my opinions about the first Nikki G. book - I had the exact same reaction there as well. The characters were all too eager to talk, too much.

A second gripe I had with the book was its ending. I can easily imagine the need - and urge - to provide in those last pages one final twist, that no one could have seen coming. I just felt it could have been made a little more plausible, and - one would have sufficed (!). It was not a very deep storyline overall, and the ending stretched it even thinner.

Finally, though, the last chapter was surprisingly sweetly written, and I found myself looking forward to wanting to read more of her adventures.

My thanks the author S.A. Lelchuk, publisher Flatiron Books, and NetGalley for providing a complimentary ARC for an honest review.

This is the first book I have read in the Nikki Griffin series and I am very impressed with this badass bookseller!

I really enjoyed the mystery plot which was very intricate, precise, and easy to follow. I didn’t figure out the mystery until the very end when it was explained to me. There are some twists and turns in the mystery plot that were just genius!

I recommend this book to readers who like a mystery series with an intricate, precise, and linear mystery plot. 4.5/5 rounded up

Happy Pub Day to One Got Away by .S.A. Lelchuk!

Thrilling, twisty and impossible to put down.
Wow, this story was fantastic and a really wild ride.
Let’s just say that Nikki’s character is awesome; she’s a badass heroine that you’re going to love.
This is the second book in a series but can be read as a standalone, I haven’t read book one and now I need to go and get it.

Thank you Flatiron Books and NetGalley for this copy.

http://www.instagram.com/booksandcoffeepleasemx

Not sure how to feel about this book. First, I didn't check to see if this was part of a series - and it is. It is a second book in Nikki Griffin series. Haven't read the first one - but still wasn't lost with the characters or the story line. I might not know a lot about our protagonist, I still got the jist of who she is and where she comes from.

So, that said. The story is missing something for me. Yes, we have a completely grey character, who's compass, as she so notably has said sometimes doesn't point north. I really appreciate that - she will do what needs to be done, especially if the opposing party is a bad one.

The story had a lot of different parts to it, but it wasn't gripping for me. It kept moving slowly, and drawn out, probably why it took me a couple of weeks to finish it. I just wasn't invested to HAVE to know what is happening and why. It also had a lot of side characters, which I have no idea if they are new, or if their connection comes from the first book. There was a connection to each one that wasn't explained fully - am I missing something, or is it setting something up for future books.

Like I said, I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it. Maybe I need to read the first book to appreciate Nikki more. BTW she is a badass.

Time is short, my TBR pile is long....do I really want to start another series? Yes. I will happily make room for Nikki Griffin, a bookstore owner and part time PI (basically my dream job) who saves women in trouble.

Nikki is a very appealing, kick-ass heroine who never seems forced or over-the-top like some female PIs in this genre do. Rather, Nikki is the super cool bookseller-slash-undercover-heroine who you'd want to have looking out for you in the world. Just over the top enough to be fun without being ridiculous.

I am also a fan of the Bay Area setting, which SA Lelchuk nails. I live in the Bay Area, and I find that a lot of writers setting stories in the Bay Area these days either make it too old-timey San Francisco without acknowledging the changing times and tech, or focus TOO much on the tech aspect and not enough on the charm of the Bay. Lelchuck has a handle on both and, without Googling, I'd guess she either lives here or has visited quite a lot. The authenticity of the city and the heroine adds to the readability of this page turner, which presents a somewhat complicated mystery featuring a mysterious and charming man with a Louis Vuitton suitcase, a number of randomly appearing goons and thugs, a slingshot, a Game Boy......and that's just in the first half.

I found this to be a fun and action-packed story with an appealing heroine. It will definitely satisfy readers looking for a traditional detective story with a modern protagonist. While there's no real reinventing the wheel here with a tough-talking female PI with a troubled past, the book knows what it is and executes its goals very well in a very fun way. Good plot and even better characters and dialogue.

Though this book had a little more of a multiple wise-guys vibe than I usually like in my mysteries, I was charmed by Nikki, and liked her and the book enough to pick up the first book in the series as well. I didn't have any trouble enjoying this one without reading the first.

Four solid stars for Nikki with the dream detective/bookstore/femme fatale life, and I look forward to reading the first book in the series.

Thanks to Flatiron Books, NetGalley, and the author for the ARC and the introduction to Nikki.