Off Season

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book.

3.5 stars rounded up
I feel like the author used every idea he had for several books and consolidated them all into this one. There is A LOT going on here, and yet somehow it works. There are so many (too many) characters to track and I think it could have been a lot shorter and less repetitive. I thought I was near the end when I was only at 50%. However, short chapters kept the pace moving and I finished this is one day. A very promising start to what I hope will be a series. Detective Ryan is a fantastic character who would fit right in on the tv show Will Trent.

I hope this gets a better editing job before publication. The tremendous amount of grammatical errors and incorrect wording really distracted me.

Detective Ryan navigates drug overdoses, a mysterious foot on the beach and a long-buried cold case! Great read!! This book had a bit of everything! It had suspense, intrigue, action, murder, mystery, a great who done it and a few crazy twists and turns! The storyline was very interesting and had me glued to my kindle! I highly recommend reading this book! Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for sharing this book with me!

A page turner.
Off Season is a superb crime thriller… and whilst intricately plotted is reasonably easy to follow. Characters are interesting and whilst insight into character is not a big feature, they do hold your attention but the incredibly clever plot is definitely the feature here. It does feel like the scene has been set for much more exploration of the main character in #2, which I’m hoping will be forthcoming. Unfortunately the most amusing/terrifying baddies were killed off, including a ferret who loves nothing more than to ‘strap on the feedbag’
Hopefully this becomes a series

organized-crime, drugs-issues, drug-trafficking, gangs, crime-thriller, NSW, Australia, lies, secrets, mistaken-identity, sociopath, murder, attempted-murder, meddling, relationships, relatives, law-enforcement, due-diligence, procedural, witness-protection*****

A couple of times I tried to put the book down because I was getting mired in the proliferation of characters. Bear in mind that a number of said characters seem like caricatures, thereby providing a good bit of snickering and snurfling and a rare guffaw or two. Like the baddie who dearly loved a pet weasel (illegal in Australia), or the antics of the overbearing meddling mother of the central character, Detective Ryan. Plenty of good investigating and some inspired plot twists and diversions. Loved it!
I requested and received a free temporary EARC from BooksGoSocial via NetGalley. Thanks!

Drugs and severed limbs washed up on a beach is a common theme in thrillers and the reader has a good idea of what to expect.
Being a brit it was easy to sympathise with Detective Ryan who was born in the UK before moving to Australia and who hates cold weather. He was a likeable character who partly for his own protection after a case against a big drug baron is unsuccessful, is transferred from Sydney to a sleepy small coastal town when all the tourists have gone for the season. And just like many TV police series set in a village, the murder rate then shoots through the roof. He works alongside a crusty old local sergeant and young constable Zoe who is keen to learn from working with a detective in the hope of becoming one herself and the interplay between the two with initial mistrust is enjoyable. The number of murders never reaches the farcical stage and three sets of baddies end up in the town with agenda that overlap.
The pace never drops and the book is very easy to read and enjoy.
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

Australia is the setting for this procedural Crime Novel. After the Sydney jury verdict in his banner drug case is rigged by the mobster defendant, Detective Ryan ________ is banished – temporarily, he is told – to the humble, outpost of a beach town called Barton Beach. As the descendant of Indian parents, he never really fit in with his big city colleagues, and he is even more out of his element in his new locale, where he is assigned for work for the small town police chief, a decent enough chap but who cringes at any hint of a crime wave and a neophyte constable, a young woman of Chinese descent who tries a bit to hard to measure up.

Things are normally quiet in Barton Beach. Ryan gets a room at a nearby motel. He meets some of the townfolk, including a tavern owner and his ex, who seems to have a thing for newcomer Ryan. But then bad things start happening.

Signs of cocaine use – and death – rear their ugly heads. The Chief isn’t happy and implies that everything had been peachy in his little seaside hamlet until big city copy, Ryan, arrived. Ignoring practically everything except the evidence and proper police procedure, Ryan works to solve the murders – and to be sure that they are murders.

Evil elements converge on him, and he doesn’t have many allies either back home in Sydney or in his new, temporary locale. Having to rely on his experience, nerve, and no small amount of guile, the young detective digs in as he pursues Australia’s biggest mobster.
The story moves from scene to scene, with each one presented from a single point of view, depending on which character is the focus of that particular scene. The bad guys – and gals – are as sociopathic as they come, and behave as one would expect sociopaths to behave, especially those who don’t have regular, lawful employment.

Fans of other procedural novels, especially those set in unique locales, will enjoy this one.