Thank you to Netgalley and the author for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.
Man! What a fun ride this was!!
Good Man Gone was a very different book than anything I’ve read previously. It is written in kind of like a detective style, where our main character, Chester is hiding a “hit man” to kill his wife Candace.
Then we go to the beginning of their marriage. Then we go with the killer to the past and his first kill.
I loved this book and the ending? Chefs kiss 😘

Premise sounded better than this one was for me unfortunately. Late to the party with my review but sadly I didn't get invested in the plot or characters nor did I care much for the writing style so ultimately a DNF.

Actually, I'd have to give this one 4.5 stars, but rounded down simply because it took a while for this one to get going. But boy oh boy when it did, it really took off. So very clever and intriguing! I don't know that I've read a storyline similar to this before. It didn't have my mouth quite hanging wide open, but it certainly caught me off guard and that's hard to do with the volume of books I shove into this brain of mine! If you would like to read something a bit different from your normal thriller, give this one a try!

I don’t think I have ever read a book quite like this, and I am not sure whether that is a good thing or a bad thing!

What struck me immediately was the style – or ‘voice’ employed. We are introduced to Chester who is a good guy – nice looking but somewhat lacking in confidence especially with women, hard-working, financially sound. One day a beautiful woman, Candace, approaches him to speak with him in a restaurant. She asks very direct questions as to his status, work, finances etc. They go on a date, and the rest as the saying goes, is history. When reading all this I had placed the action in a particular time, almost like a B movie from America – somewhere around the 40’s, 50’s. Chester is so naïve, Candace not so, although her questioning has a somewhat unsophisticated ring to it. Imagine my surprise to find it is current times. So I somewhat hesitantly continued reading, though still a bit unsure.

The young couple marry and have a daughter and it becomes clear that Candace has various issues relating to her childhood and upbringing, all very logical and understandable and Chester is aware of these and sympathetic, but he is worried about their relationship because he loves her so much – what if she leaves and takes Amara?

Chester makes a plan, something to sort everything out. It necessitates the hiring of a cottage in Canada and the scene is set.

Enter the police – another range of characters, all kind of vague – with much of the emphasis on how they look; the dialogue seems off kilter.

The narration is revealed through various time-frames, differing voices and different places. All this works. Characters are a bit hard to pin down as though here is no substance to them.

All that said, it is a good story, unusual and full of surprises and well worth a read, despite my hesitancy about the dialogue – and the ‘voice’.

Thank you to the author, publishers and NetGalley for providing an ARC via my Kindle in return for an honest review.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ From me for this one!
Very entertaining and a fun read! Surprises galore which I love! Peter McPhie just kept me guessing and guessing right up until the end. McPhie has written a very clever book. I can only imagine how hard it must have been to put together so many intricate details and surprise me so completely. I will definitely be reading more by this author.

Chester is a good man. He has a beautiful wife, a darling daughter. He has a job, while he's not going to get rich, it's enough to pay the bills, although not enough to keep his wife in all the things she would like to have.

After several years of marriage, he feels that she is pulling away from him and their life together. He's terrified that she will leave him and take his daughter with her.

He absolutely cannot let that happen .. he will do anything, anything at all to keep that from occuring.

But how far will he go? He comes up with a plan ... but you know what they say ... The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. And this one goes way off track!

It's unpredictable .. sometimes it's humorous ... sometimes it's scary. Not all is as it seems.

It's well written with a clever plot. I couldn't help but like Chester. His wife ... maybe not so much. When they first meet, the clues are there that she's on the lookout for a man ... a well-off man .. who will take care of her and give her the life she thinks she deserves. Her back-story shows that without bad luck, she'd have no luck at all. It's fast-paced, with twists and turns that lead to a totally unexpected ending.

Many thanks to the author / Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) / Netgalley for the digital copy of this most entertaining crime fiction. Read and reviewed voluntarily, opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

This novel really took off for me at about the half-way point, and I enjoyed the Cottage Country setting and the events of the second half. The writing was somewhat stilted in parts, and the main characters (Chester and Candace) could have been developed more fully so that the reader is more invested in what happens to them. Overall, a quick, entertaining read.

Thank you to Net Galley, the author and publisher for the chance to review this book.

This book had so many twists and turns, I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. It a captivating plot with interesting characters that made for an entertaining read.

'It's not every day that a good man sets a killing in motion.'

This is the story of un husband that do stupid things for love. And nothing is like as it seems. And then the unpredictable happens. In theory.
A tale of love at the edge.

It was realy hard to get in the story. When I did, it was better. Halfway through, I thought it was going to be over, but the story took a different path, which was nice. And ad the end there was a twist I liked but i would love to get more points to guess that. I liked that I did know that would be the ending but the way it was presented was not just one of the best. To many coindincedences for me.

"Like the sun beams bright and gives warmth to things... like the rain falls to earth and gives life to things... your shine and your shower give warmth and life to me" Chester for Candance

Pub. Date Maj 1st 2021
I received a copy in exchange for a fair review on Netgalley.com

Chester has found himself madly in love and completely devoted to his wife, until he convinced himself that she was going to leave him. Told in a Before and Now perspective, we learn how Chester met his wife, the struggles she faced to cause her to be cold/hard to get through, her connection with her daughter over fairy princesses and the step's Chester took to put a hit man on his wife.
As the book says, "never underestimate the obvious" and really I did just that because it's really not what you think until the hit happens, but it was in your face from the start! A really good twist and plot.
Initially I found the writing a little difficult to read especially in the first 30% of the book. I wasn’t super hooked from the start and at that point I wasn't sure if I would finish it. However, I held out and once I got over the first 30-40% of the book, all the action started, and I could not put the book down, so I am glad I held out! I read the rest in one sitting. I enjoyed the premise of the plot, the reasonings behind why things went the way they went, which at first I did not connect the dots on.
My biggest issue was really the writing style especially in the first half of the book, but you get used to it really quickly.
I do wish we had a bit more in the "before" on Candace - how did she feel about Chester throughout her life with him; what intrigued her about him that day at the diner? Why him over the other men since it seems she gets quite a bit of attention. Also, I felt that Chester was so in love with her - but what about her other than her looks did Chester love about her. Either way, the end was great and I loved again how everything came full circle.

Overall, after the first 30% an enjoyable, suspenseful, action packed, fast read!

Thank you to the author, publishing company and NetGalley for this electronic review copy in exchange for my honest review!

“It’s not every day that a good man sets a killing in motion”
“A tidy plan, an unusual murder but.. all is not as it seems”

Wow. This book was full of surprises. As someone who reads a lot of thrillers, I did not guess the twists until they were right in front of me. It was definitely a quick, action packed suspense novel. There’s multiple timelines and different perspectives with a cast of unlikeable characters. I had to know what was going to happen next and the motivations behind everything!

My only critique would be the writing style. It is very choppy and a “telling not showing” type of writing. It was hard to get into the flow at first but once I got it I was hooked. It really picks up about a third of the way through.

This was a unique story with new and interesting characters I haven’t experienced before.

*Thank you Netgalley for sharing an advanced reading copy with me in exchange for an honest review.