Als de 3 jarige Charlie verdwijnt tijdens een kampeertocht met zijn ouders en oma is de paniek groot. Maar charlie wordt nergens gevonden.Jaren later gaat privédetective Kate Marshall voor haar dagelijkse zwempartij de zee bij haar huis in. Later wordt zij wakker in het ziekenhuis en ze hoort dat ze ternauwernood aan de dood is ontsnapt. Haar buurvrouw in het ziekenhuis is Jean Jullings, de oma van Charlie. zij vertelt het verhaal van de verdwijning van haar kleinzoon. Kate is gefascineerd en als ze later van Jean de vraag krijgt om een onderzoek te starten neemt ze de opdracht aan. Samen met haar partner Tristan Harper begint ze aan haar taak en vindt veel tegenstrijdige dngen in het onderzoek wat destijds is gedaan. Goed geschreven, spannend. ( )

Devil's Way is an engaging thriller about the search for a missing boy and the lengths desperate people will go to tide their sins. Just after Kate has a nasty incident in a rip tide, she and Tristan are off on a new case. The plot twists are never ending as the suspense builds. A third of the way in, the bittersweet ending is foreseeably, but it still packs a punch when you get there. I like these two characters (Kate and Tristan) and how they play off each other. Very enjoyable. I'm looking forward to the next book in the series. ( )

Kate Marshall's life changed following the sudden death of her dear friend and Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor, Myra. Kate was surprised to learn that Myra bequeathed her business and home to Kate, conditioned on Kate launching her own detective agency. Tristan, her former research assistant at Ashdean University, where Kate was a lecturer in criminology, became her partner. It is now 2018, and together they are running both the agency and the caravan site Kate inherited from Myra which provides an income stream between cases.

Kate has maintained both her sobriety and relationship with her beloved son, Jake, who is now a junior at a California university and opts to remain in Los Angeles for the summer to complete an internship at a prestigious film company. Kate starts every morning, rain or shine, with a swim in the ocean. But on a lovely June day, she immediately notices that something is wrong. She comes up for air and feels a violent current tugging at her waist and legs. As she is dragged back under the water, she realizes that she has been caught in a riptide and is powerless to escape. Meanwhile, while she is fighting for her life, Tristan is staking out a house across town, watching to see if the husband of their client will emerge with another woman.

Twenty-four hours later, Kate awakens in the intensive care unit and learns that she was rescued by a couple of her guests at the caravan site who observed her struggle in the water. As Kate begins recovering, she gets acquainted with another patient, Jean, whose bed is only obscured from Kate's view by a curtain. Jean overheard the physician mention that Kate is a private detective and begins questioning her about the type of cases she has handled. Specifically, cases of missing persons. Jean is a mere fifty-five years old, but looks nearly two decades older than Kate, who is forty-seven. She reveals that her grandson, Charlie, vanished eleven years earlier and was never found. With his fate undetermined, Jean's daughter, Becky, could not cope with the loss of her son and took her own life seven years later. Becky blamed Jean for Charlie's disappearance because Jean and Charlie had gone camping with Becky and Charlie's father, Joel. Charlie was sleeping in Jean's tent, and Jean stepped outside intending to remain close by while she smoked a cigarette. But her on-again, off-again boyfriend of many years, Declan Connoly, showed up and Jean ventured further from the tent than originally planned in order to confront and deal with him. By the time she returned, Charlie was nowhere to be found. Along with Becky and Joel, Jean searched for Charlie for several hours before they reported his disappearance to the police and search parties were assembled.

The group was camping at fictional Devil's Way in the eastern portion of Dartmoor National Park. Author Robert Bryndza fashioned it after Dartmoor and Exeter where he spent summer holidays as a child. His detailed descriptions of the Devil's Way Tor (an imposing stack of rocks atop a grassy hillside), river, gorge, and a massive sink hole into which authorities suspected Charlie fell, whisk readers away to a beautiful, but mysterious and eerie setting. The area is isolated, and permeated with a sense of brooding and foreboding. There is even an imposing Pixie Tree to which fabric ribbons are affixed as offerings in hopes that wishes will be granted. It is easy to imagine a little boy waking up alone in a tent, frightened, and going looking for his grandmother but losing his way in the dark. Search dogs traced Charlie’s scent to the edge of the river but found no other clues to Charlie's whereabouts. Eventually, authorities stopped looking for Charlie.

Jean and Tristan agree to take the case with the knowledge that the chances of finding Charlie alive are virtually nonexistent. However, Kate is anxious to provide Jean the closure and peace she is seeking. Kate is moved by Jean’s plight -- she has lost both her only child and only grandchild.

Bryndza details Kate and Tristan's investigative steps, which include reviewing news articles about the case and the evidence amassed by authorities, as well as meetings with police personnel who were assigned to the case and other witnesses. They learn that Joel has moved on with his life -- he has remarried, has two young daughters, and operates a pub. Declan Connoly served time in prison and Charlie's blood was found in his car, but police were satisfied that Charlie cut his hand during an outing with Declan and Jean a few weeks prior to his disappearance. Oof course, they venture to Devil's Way to inspect the area where Charlie was last seen alive. They also visit the adjacent Danvers Farm and have a run-in with one of its residents. They learn that the prior tenants abruptly departed not long after Charlie went missing. They also discover that Jean was at odds with a social worker who was brutally murdered at around the same time. Could her blood-spattered notebook hold clues to Charlie's fate?

Once again, Bryndza has crafted a richly atmospheric, cleverly plotted story. He again demonstrates he is equally adept at the construction of complex and suspenseful mysteries, and character development. Kate is changed by her brush with death. She is mortified by her own vulnerability, embarrassed that she had to be rescued and owes her life to the surfers who pulled her from the water. She is also resolved not to let the experience change her lifestyle. Her relationship with Tristan is tested in new ways -- they have their first real disagreement -- as they work closely together, and Tristan expands his investigative skills with Kate’s mentoring.

They are surrounded by an eccentric and compelling cast of supporting characters, including Jean, the old-before-her-time grandmother who struggled with addiction, as well as a toxic romance from which she was unable to extract herself for far too long and her fractured relationship with her daughter. She is riddled with guilt about Charlie’s disappearance and Becky’s death and traumatized by both events. But her devotion to Charlie and grief over his loss seems genuine, so her failure to be forthright in her dealings with Jean and Tristan is puzzling. Tristan's old friend Ade makes an appearance, and his sister, Sarah, now a mother, continues to insert herself and her opinions into Tristan's personal life and professional relationship with Kate. But Tristan is maturing, growing more self-assured and assertive. In addition to Declan and Joel, readers get to know the reclusive Anna through characters with whom she interacted, including the officious and self-aggrandizing Maureen Cook, who ran the Cranborough Writers group of which Anna was a member. Maureen is a “large lady in her late fifties who seemed to have overdone it with the fake tan,” sports blue eye shadow, and loves cruises. She is hilariously proud of her “photostat copier” and dismayed at having been the target of a coup within the writing group.

As Kate and Tristan search for answers, Bryndza injects surprising revelations, red herrings, and shocking details about his characters' lives and behavior into an evenly paced and emotionally evocative narrative. Only well into the story will readers find themselves guessing, perhaps correctly, about Charlie's fate. Figuring out the mystery does not diminish the satisfaction of being privy to the various characters' reactions when the truth is unveiled, especially those who loved little Charlie Julings. Bryndza competently tackles difficult topics, including the devastation of sudden loss, the ongoing effects of grief and guilt, and mental illness in an absorbing, entertaining, and surprisingly moving tale in which he illustrates that sometimes the truth does indeed hide in the dark.

Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book. ( )

Entertaining thriller as Kate and Tristan investigate an old missing person case.

Kate and Tristan are running their fledgling detective agency on a shoestring and are always looking for new business. Kate, in the hospital after a near drowning incident, meets a fellow patient with a very sad story about her missing grandson. Even though it's been over 11 years, Jean can't accept that her 3-year-old grandson could really be dead. Kate and Tristan agree to start looking into old records and visit the location where Charlie vanished in the middle of the night. The more clues they discover, the more questions they have.

This is the 4th in a series that has really grown on me. I like the main characters -- Kate, a mature 47 mentoring Tristan, her former research assistant when she was professor in criminology. Her police background gives her credentials and respect, and he's a quick learner. Blessedly, no romance and Kate doesn't do stupid things to put herself in danger in this book. Nice and clever mystery with a predictable but satisfying outcome.

Thank you to NetGalley and Raven Street Publishing for this e-book ARC to read, review and recommend. I look forward to the next installment. ( )

Devil’s Way by Robert Bryndza
Kate Marshall #4

Seven years into the timeline of this series we find Kate having defied death and Tristan doing more legwork as they take on a missing person case. The person missing has been gone for eleven years and was only three when he disappeared. What happened to Charlie has been a mystery and heavy burden for his family to carry. Perhaps a new look by the intrepid Kate and Tristan will find answers the police did not unearth.

What I liked:
* Returning to a well-loved series
* Catching up with Kate and Tristan though there was not a great deal about their private lives in this book
* The plot, writing, and the way clues were followed to more clues till all was exposed
* The professional relationship between Kate and Tristan
* The atmosphere provided by the landscape
* Thinking about how difficult it must have been for more than one character in this story to deal with the events of the story and the ultimate outcome
* Wondering what the next book will be about and if perhaps either Kate or Tristan might have a bit more of a social life
* Wondering about Kate’s son and if he will show up in a future book.

What I didn’t like:
* Who and what I was meant not to like
* Thinking about the choices made and how they impacted others in a broad and rather painful ripple effect while wondering how some would fare in the future

Did I like this book? Yes
Would I read more in this series? Yes

Thank you to NetGalley and Raven Street Publishing for the ARC – This is my honest review.

4-5 Stars ( )