MRC RECOMMENDS: A Requiem For The Dead by Winter Austin
“Highly recommended for readers who enjoy an intelligent police procedural/suspense story that’s tough to put down.”
– The Mystery Review Crew
A Requiem For The Dead
By Winter Austin
Genre: Mystery, Thriller
Series: A Benoit and Dayne Mystery Book 4
The dead can no longer keep their secrets …
On a cold February morning, ME Olivia Remington-Thorpe’s severely beaten and bleeding husband stumbles onto Sheriff Elizabeth Benoit’s retreat. Before slipping into unconsciousness, he begs her to find Olivia. Hours later, Deputy Detective Lila Dayne discovers a mysterious boneyard with dark secrets.
The timing is catastrophic. Still reeling from the horrific events of the past autumn, the deputies of Eckardt County are spread thin, and tempers are short. Elizabeth’s relationship with her lead investigator is sour. Still worse, her ex-husband moved back to Iowa with a devilish deal.
As Elizabeth and Lila race the odds to uncover the truth of the skeletal remains and find their missing friend alive, Olivia seeks a way to escape from an abductor who is proving that she didn’t know her husband as well as she thought.
More bodies turn up, mysterious visitors arrive in Juniper, and one mistake from the Eckardt County Sheriff’s team will spell their own deaths in their most dangerous murder investigation to date.
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Review of A Requiem for the Dead by Winter Austin
There’s a lot going on in the town of Juniper, in Eckardt County, Iowa. Sheriff Elizabeth “Ellie” Benoit is on medical leave, and her department is running short-handed, both due to horrific events in the recent past. But Ellie finds herself pressed back into service when a friend’s husband shows up, bloodied and beaten, and begs her to find his wife—Ellie’s friend, Olivia Remington-Thorpe. That same day, Deputy Lila Dayne is called to a scene littered with, not corpses, but skeletons, all picked virtually clean.
Winter Austin gives us a scenario that must be high on the list of things law enforcement officers don’t want to see happen. A missing person, multiple crime scenes, confusing evidence, a department struggling to regain its footing after one of their own went rogue, and a communications system that’s gone haywire. Austin also throws in a good dose of interpersonal tension for good measure: Ellie and her lead deputy aren’t on the greatest terms, and she’s trying to work with both her ex and her former brother-in-law.
The characters are well-written, with enough backstory to give us a sense of who they are and what motivates them. As happens in real life, they have personal issues to deal with, but they can’t let those get in the way of solving the crime. Some were sympathetic, some were not, but all were dynamic and engaging.
Austin pulls her characters and the reader along with red herrings and misdirections, only to have those lead nowhere. It’s frustrating in the best possible way. With so many story threads, it would be easy to lose track of one and leave a loose end hanging. But Austin masterfully weaves them all together into a compelling, suspenseful story that has me wanting to experience more in Benoit and Dayne’s world.
A Requiem for the Dead is highly recommended for readers who enjoy an intelligent police procedural/suspense story that’s tough to put down.
About Winter Austin
Winter Austin perpetually answers the question: “were you born in the winter?” with a flat “nope.” Having returned to her hometown, Winter has stepped into the chaotic world of a full-time wife, mom, author, and employee.
A lifelong Mid-West gal, Winter rediscovered her love of her beloved Iowa with its hot summers and snowy winters. She grew up listening to the captivating stories told by relatives around the table or a campfire. Since becoming a published author, she learned a mindset of a glass half-empty personality makes for a perfect suspense/thriller author. Taking her ability to verbally spin a vivid and detailed story, Winter translated that into writing deadly romantic thrillers. Combining her love of all things rural, agricultural, and military, she’s turned her small town life upside down.
Visit her at https://authorwinteraustin.com/
