CAROL KARUSO is no stranger to bad breaks or dark secrets, but when there’s a knock on the door and a plea for help, she puts aside her blues and focuses on what she does best: finding the lost.

She grows up as an innocent girl in Texas. After marrying her high school sweetheart, all Carol wants is a quiet life in her small town, and to be a good wife and mother.

Then everything goes to hell. Three dead husbands and too many disastrous relationships later, she starts anew in Couper, Washington. But she soon learns that it’s impossible to escape her murky past and bad luck no matter where she goes.

To keep her mind off her troubles and to do something useful with her life, she gets her private investigator’s license. When a friend asks her to find a woman who disappeared two decades ago, Carol agrees, sure this is the perfect way to hone her fledgling skills.

As she doggedly chases every lead, she becomes fascinated by the mysterious woman she is looking for, whose history is even darker than her own. Carol’s persistence and refusal to let anyone scare her into abandoning the investigation puts her at odds with a man who will stop at nothing to keep what happened twenty years ago buried in the past.

Fallen Angel is the first Carol Karuso Mystery (check out the prequel, Texas Redux). If you hunger for thrilling mysteries, especially those that include a beautiful, redheaded detective (who is a mix of cynicism, humor, bad habits, and a desire to do good), colorful characters, dark villains, and a big serving of murder and mayhem, you’ll find this book and series particularly yummy.

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