Dear Karen Rose,
Cora Jane Winslow’s father disappeared when she was nearly five years old, 23 years ago. She, her brother and her mother, believed that he had run off with another woman. Cora had been receiving letters from her dad on and off for years. But two weeks before the book begins, Cora’s father’s remains were found in the foundations of an old building. He’d been shot and killed 23 years earlier. But… who were the letters from and, who broke into her house and what were they looking for?
Phin Bishop is a veteran with PTSD who had been working at Broussard Investigations as night security. He had an episode some six weeks earlier though and ran off. It’s what he does when he can’t cope. He hasn’t seen his family in Ohio for five years because he’s convinced he’s not good enough for them. But Phin has good friends and one of them trained a service dog for him – Sodapop. Since having Sodapop, Phin has been doing better.
As the story starts, Phin is outside Broussard Investigations trying to to go into the building, about to bail, when a distraught woman wearing a cloak (yes, a cloak) runs out of the building after shots are fired. Phin and his friend Stone race into the building to find the receptionist, Joy, has been shot and from then the action doesn’t slow down much.
Readers know, mostly, the identity of the villain from the start. Reverend Alan Beauchamp killed Jack Elliott (Cora’s father) all those years ago for reasons we only find out late in the novel. His grandson, Sage, was the person breaking into Cora’s house and the person who shot Joy, after having followed Cora into the PI’s offices. Alan wants the letters because he’s worried they may implicate him in the murder.
The entire book takes place over the course of not much more than two weeks. Phin and Cora are fairly instantly attracted to one another but the short time frame of the story didn’t leave a lot of room for relationship development. Yes, I saw a connection between them but after such a short time I wasn’t quite ready for a full HEA. I did think Phin and Cora were good for each other but boy was it fast.
Following various leads, Phin, his friends and Cora discover exactly what Cora’s father was doing when he was killed. This involves breaking many elaborate codes and solving complicated puzzles which mostly felt unnecessary.
Sage steals laptops from Broussard Investigations. Alan is worried that the firm may have incriminating evidence about him and enlists the aid of a computer whiz who Alan has been blackmailing for years to do his bidding. The whiz tells Alan he can’t help with these particular laptops because he helps put the security onto them. Strangely, the people at Broussard Investigations don’t seem to be aware of this. They do not recognise the guy’s name and it never comes up again.
Alan kills various people, Sage does too and Cora and Phin get closer as they try to work out what happened to her father, who shot Joy and why they are after her. Alan in particular is a caricature of a villain, with no nuance to him whatsoever. Sage at least, had some subtlety to his characterisation.
What attracted me most to Buried Too Deep was the service dog, Sodapop. I was hoping we’d see more of her doing her thing. We did see some and she was a Very Good Dog but she didn’t feature as much in the story as I’d hoped.
There was a sensitive depiction of PTSD and the challenges vets with trauma face when they return home, which I appreciated.
I didn’t quite understand how Cora was so financially challenged in looking after her house (inherited through generations of Winslows) when her grandmother left a trust for the house’s upkeep. It seemed Cora was reluctant to use the money for it’s designated purpose?
The book is a bit of a doorstopper, the plot convoluted and a little cheesy and there just wasn’t enough of the dog. Possibly readers of the earlier books in the New Orleans series will enjoy the book a little better, given they will already know some of the characters, but for me Buried Too Deep was just okay.
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Kaetrin
Kaetrin started reading romance as a teen and then took a long break, detouring into fantasy and thrillers. She returned to romance in 2008 and has been blogging since 2010. She reads contemporary, historical, a little paranormal, urban fantasy and romantic suspense, as well as erotic romance and more recently, new adult. She loves angsty books, funny books, long books and short books. The only thing mandatory is the HEA. Favourite authors include Mary Balogh, Susanna Kearsley, Joanna Bourne, Tammara Webber, Kristen Ashley, Shannon Stacey, Sarah Mayberry, JD Robb/Nora Roberts, KA Mitchell, Marie Sexton, Patricia Briggs, Ilona Andrews, just to name a few. You can find her on Twitter: @kaetrin67.
