In Little Falls, author Elizabeth Lewes weaves an intriguing dark noir mystery tale that follows ex-military veteran Sergeant Camille Waresch as she takes it upon herself to investigate the horrific tortured death of nineteen year old Patrick Beale.

This dark noir mystery tale is set in Little Falls, Washington. Camille Waresch is a military verteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. She's come home with the horrors of war, and has a hard time struggling with PTSD. She tries to get normalcy in her life with a job as a county property tax inspector, and owner of the local town mart. She is also trying to establish a relationship with her fifteen year old head strong daughter Sophie, but finds that she is lacking in mothering skills.

While conducting a property inspection at an isolated ranch, Camille finds the tortured body of local nineteen year old Patrick Beale hanging in the rafters of the barn. The grizzly scene sends Camille into a tailspin as her combat-PTSD comes back to haunt her. As Camille digs into the murder, she finds that her daughter Sophie is caught in the middle, and she is driven to the edge as her investigation leads her into dangerous territory, but she is determined to get her daughter back, and get to the truth behind the murder.

In her debut novel, author Elizabeth Lewes provides a multi-layered storyline that has enough mystery, suspense, drama, treachery, secrets, tension, and intriguing twists and turns that keeps the reader guessing, while weaving an intricate and complicated portrait of Camille's PTSD as her flashbacks to her military past intertwine with the present, providing a haunting quest to get justice while dealing with her inner demons.

Told in the first person perspective, Camille takes the reader along for the ride on her stealthy military-based investigative quest. This engaging noir mystery story has realistic characters; and an intriguing and tension filled multi-layered storyline that easily draws the reader into the interconnection between Camille's military past and the present, and how the pieces of the murder investigation puzzle comes together and is solved.

This was a sobering and very dark noir story to read. I couldn't help but feel for Camille as her PTSD kicks in after discovering the murder scene, and how she spirals into paranoia and is on edge as her quest to get to the truth of the murder takes over her life, especially when it becomes personal as her daughter is caught in the middle. The story alternates between Camille's flashbacks to her miltiary deployment with the present, and you can't help but sit on the edge of your seat as you wonder what will come next. This was a very compelling debut story that definitely kept me turning the pages, but I would be remiss if I didn't mention that in my opinion, the conclusion was abrupt and left me scratching my head.

Little Falls is the kind of dark noir murder mystery that easily keeps the reader captivated, guessing, on their toes, and wanting more!

Disclaimer: I received a copy of the book from the author / publisher in exchange for my honest review and participation in a virtual book tour event hosted by Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours.

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Little Falls is a dark, intense, slowburn mystery with a strong focus on characters.

Camille, our main character, is an unreliable narrator in the sense that she doesn’t always trust her own perception, making it difficult for us to trust what she tells us. I struggled with her. She made me uncomfortable because I didn’t always like her, and I was sometimes appalled by her judgement and behavior. But the beauty of the writing here is that I also understood her, and I sympathized, even when I wanted to scream for her to do things differently.

PTSD is a major factor with this story. I thought the author handled this aspect brilliantly, allowing us to not only see but also to feel the long-term effects of trauma.

The rural, isolated setting adds another layer of unease to a story that’s filled with tension and angst.

This is an excellent debut, and I’m looking forward to more from this author.

*I received a review copy as part of the Partners in Crime blog tour.* ( )

This was a tense but somewhat odd mystery. I was drawn in to the world where Camille Waresh lives. She is a Vet who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and came home with PTSD. She had left her infant daughter with her parents when she joined the service. But now with both of her parents gone, she is struggling with connecting with her now 15-year-old daughter.

Camille works as an assessor for her county. One day she discovers the hanging body of a young man when she goes to look at a property. The death brings back memories from her time in the service. One of her soldiers was also found hanging in a derelict building. The current investigation has some eerie similarities with the other one. Camille becomes sure that the two events are connected.

Camille begins her own investigation into the death of the young man who was a former boyfriend of her daughter. But she faces all sorts of problems not the least of which is that she is swept up by flashbacks to her time in Iraq and suffers memory losses. Also causing problems is that her daughter seems to be involved in the conspiracy Camille discovers. She also faces attacks on her property as she investigates. And evidence and documents disappear which could be a function of someone cleaning up the evidence or could be that she just imagined this evidence in the first place.

Many things indicate that Camille is looking back at the events of her investigation but the story doesn't indicate how she got from the time of the investigation to the time when she is looking back at it. The ending came as a complete surprise to me. In fact, I turned the page thinking that there had to be more to the story - that it couldn't end like that.

There were many things I enjoyed about the story. There was certainly a lot of tension that built and built. I thought Camille was an interesting character. I just wasn't sure I could trust what she saw or did. ( )