I love a good police procedural series, and Kendra Elliot's Columbia River series is one of the best. With The Next Grave, the 6th installment in this series, Evan Bolton, Rowan Wolff and Thor are both emotionally involved in the investigation and personally targeted. When Rod McLeod's body is found, Evan is immediately obsessed with finding out who and why his friend and mentor was brutally murdered. When the investigation reveals that Rod was looking into old, solved cases and then Rod's daughter disappears, the case becomes personal.

Like any good detective series, the characters are relatable, and I enjoy the relationships between recurring characters throughout. The romance between Evan and Rowan, being completely off-screen, is one of the aspects of this series that I enjoy. As a dog lover I especially love Thor's small role in the story, he is such a smart canine.

The audiobook, narrated by Teri Schnaubelt was terrific, well-paced with a good voice for a detective novel. Thank you to Netgalley and Brilliance Audio for the audio ARC of The Next Grave by Kendra Elliot. The opinions in this review are my own.

First, I would like to thank both the Author and Brilliance Audio for the opportunity to read this as an Audio ARC.

Now for the review. This book helped me out of a slump. I could not get into anything until I started this, and right away, I was sat for it. From the moment we find Rod's body until the moment the story is over, you will continue to be tossed around on what is going to happen and who is the one that did all of this. Then, near the end, you discover who and why the person did it. With everything that happened, it constantly felt like something was going wrong for the main detective when his fingerprints were discovered I went to the point of "How much more could go wrong for this man" just was a bit redundant with stuff going on.

Overall it was still an amazing book and easily, I would give this book a 4.75/5 as my only gripe is just that it always seemed that something was going wrong for him. It did help push the story you just get annoyed with it.

I listened to the audio of this book which I note is the sixth in a series. I've not read the previous 5 and I don't think you need to. The characters do mention earlier exploits but it doesn't appear to bear much relation to the storyline.

Evan Bolton, a detective, has to find out why his retired mentor Rod McLeod has been killed and who has abducted Rod's daughter, Sophie. He has the help of girlfriend, Rowan, a dog handler who specialises in finding missing people. The story basically follows the investigation in which Evan himself becomes a target.

The series appears to be set in Oregon, a state I know very little about but they do seem to have terrible problems with people getting kidnapped. There is mention of Rowan's brother who was held for decades then another relative who was rescued much more quickly. And in this book there are several abductions.

This part of the plot seemed very unlikely as we're the kidnappers methods of extracting information and even the reasons for the abductions. In all, I spent quite a bit of time rolling my eyes and talking back to the book.

The actual narration by Teri Schnaubelt, was okay but fell into the category of female narrators who overdramatise. Her "male" voice was a tone I often find offputting - either in pain or constipated. I wish narrators would merely leave gaps between characters rather than "do" voices.

I also found the character of Rowan quite irritating as she would listen to what someone said then repeat it in her mind. It got a little annoying at the end.

For me, the book was just average as was the narration hence the 3 stars.

Thankyou to Netgalley and Brilliance Publishing for the audio advance review copy.

Pretty darn good read! This book had me breathing hard and biting my nails! I'm going to say it was wrong on who I thought it was! I was screaming about the wrong person the whole time LOL! But darn!! This book at me on the edge of my set! I felt like the person wasn't reading the book fast enough for me to figure out what was happening for me! Goodness! Heart was racing! I need to find more by this author!

This was my first book by this author. I really enjoyed this audiobook, it was easy to follow and kept me guessing till the very end. I will definitely check out the rest of the series

Really enjoyed this installment of the Columbia River series! A great mystery plot that personally impacted our main characters so the stakes were high. Fast paced and kept me guessing - no complaints here!