Coal-miner’s daughter, Bobby Hutchinson, is normally a writer of romances, but it’s probably inevitable she’d write a book called Stand By Your Man. Only, this is not a romance by any stretch of the imagination. Oh, it has a lot of romance, but this is a rip-roaring, gas-passing mystery novel that will have you checking your underwear for railroad tracks for sure.
Maddie Bertusso is a private investigator in Seattle. She and her partner Hannah do all kinds of cases, from checking on straying spouses to purse snatching. When Maddie’s sister Francine gets hooked up with a convicted felon, Sebastian Fisher, though, the detecting schtick becomes intensely personal for Maddie. It becomes moreso, and quite complicated, when Maddie meets Sebastian’s brother Finn and his adorable daughter Zoe.
I haven’t read any of Hutchinson’s romance novels, but if they have the snappy dialogue, spot-on characterizations, and no-frills narrative of Stand By Your Man, she just might convert me to the genre. In the meantime, this is a mystery novel that stands in a class of its own. I got a free review copy of SBYM, but I’m putting the sequels on my to-buy list. It was a bit choppy in places, but then again, that fit the story which was about the ups and downs of romance, family relations, and a whole boatload of other stuff that our heroine had to contend with. You’ll like the ending – because it’s not the normal mystery novel ending, and I’ll say no more so as not to spoil it for you.
Kudos to Hutchinson for this five-star story! ( )