The Bad Neighbor

I have read this entire series and love Victoria Healing as a character. The story was written in a slightly different style than past books but the storyline as usual was awesome. This is a series to read, but can be read as a stand alone

In the idyllic Mountain Meadows neighborhood, a fresh start can quickly become a fatal ending. For newcomers Chris and Zoey Hamilton, the affluent community seems like the perfect location to build! Great read!! I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book! It had great suspense, intriguing, action, mystery, murder, kidnapping, a great who done it and a few crazy twists and turns! The story 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!

Ca faisait tellement longtemps que je n'avais pas été prise comme ça dans une intrigue. de thriller. Et quel bonheur. Je suis tellement fan de cette saga. Chaque tome est unique et incroyable. On est jamais déçu lorsqu'on se lance dans l'un des livres de Jenifer Ruff et quel plaisir !!

This is the ninth book about FBI Agent Victoria Heslin, but there’s no need to have read the previous eight. Well, unless you want to know how Victoria met the hunky veterinarian, Ned, who is now her fiancé.

Victoria and Ned are lucky enough to live in an upscale Virginia subdivision (thanks, grandpa!) called Mountain Meadows (which in Utah is a creepy name since there was a massacre named just that). Mountain Meadows is a bit more than a cul-de-sac within a larger HOA, with a newly sold home where the previous owner went suddenly missing 5 years; a loner guy collecting unfinished home-improvement projects; a vicious Karen who is the self-appointed “neighborhood president”; and two or three maybe normal couples. The newcomers (who, my goodness, dared to install colorful bird feeders out front) are not feeling very welcomed. Victoria worries about being a “bad neighbor” since she’s a bit of an introvert and reticent about her well-known FBI reputation, but she and Ned spring into action when they find a pair of wandering dogs without their owner. Their owner, the female half of the new couple, Zoe, has suddenly gone missing, unexpectedly leaving her dogs’ leashes behind on a gazebo near a nasty pond.

I love this series and this one was one of the best! You can always rely on and root for Victoria, there’s usually a few adorable dog moments, and the mystery will keep you guessing. As soon as I finish one of the Victoria Heslin books, I want a new one! 5 stars!

Literary Pet Peeve Checklist:
Green Eyes (only 2% of the real world, yet it seems like 90% of all fictional females): SORT OF Author Ruff doesn’t ever have characters with green eyes, but this time there’s a cat!
Horticultural Faux Pas (plants out of season or growing zones, like daffodils in autumn or bougainvillea in Alaska): Grace, there was no need to replace the yellow mums for an “autumnal” display! They are autumn flowers. That’s perennial abuse. Also, I totally get the fear of my dogs getting poisoned in a pond without proper maintenance….maybe the HOA should have addressed that sooner (like 5 years ago),

Thank you to Books Go Social/Amazon Publishing and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy!

Thank you to the publishers & Netgalley for allowing me to read this book in advance!

I couldn’t put this book down, I read it in a day! Each page just wants to keep you reading until there’s no more pages to read!

If you love mystery / thrillers then this book is definitely the one for you.

Once again thank you to NetGalley for choosing me to voice my thoughts on this book!

I have read a couple of books by this author. After reading The Bad Neighbor I can't wait to read more.
The characters are fascinating and the plot draws you in. I read this one in less than 24 hours!

5* Shades of Mercy Kilpatrick. I need more, like yesterday!

Wow, I devoured this book. Like the author says, every one stands on its own, though it's part of a series, and I wasn't lost at all.

It's very reminiscent of the murder-mystery books by Kendra Elliott and Melinda Leigh, with a strong female agent who gets to the bottom of a case, trusting her instincts as well as her solid detection skills.

There's not a ton to the plot - an abducted female - but there are plenty of shady characters and one female who's reminiscent of Delores Umbrage, who really deserves to be taken down a peg or few. At the end, though we don't get to specifically read about it, she's cancelled her cleaner and is having to clear up her own vomit.

I can't wait to read more and am off to check out the author's back catalogue.

ARC courtesy of NetGalley and Greyt Companion Press for my reading pleasure.

This was my first read by this author and I am hooked! It’s well-written and kept me turning the pages in anticipation of what would happen next! The characters were interesting and well developed. The storyline was engaging. When I thought I had it figured out, something else happened to make me think a different way. It’s a quick and great read. I am definitely looking forward to reading more by this author.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

I enjoyed this this book. Though part of a series, you can really read it as a standalone. It was a good popcorn suspense. This was a quick read - I finished in two days.

Zoey and her husband Chris move to a new neighborhood. Something isn't right about the people in this town. Luckily FBI Agent Victoria lives here and is on the case.

I enjoyed the characters. Grace Fairchild was the perfect blend of nice-nasty. The story became a little predictable midway. I had an idea about what was happening, but the author threw in a nice twist at the end.

An unpredictable, unputdownable, page=turning mystery with great suspense and characters. One reviewer stated one character was similar to Delores Umbridge and honestly, that's pretty spot on if I do say so myself.

When I spotted this title, it piqued my interest and I did a little further investigating. I love a good mystery thriller and it has been a while since I’ve come across a modern day one, I really enjoyed. There are a few factors I consider as a praise worthy read. Everyone is a suspect; motives are running rapid; opportunity is the icing on the cake. Those things are easily contrived but not always easily blended in with the flow of the story. Too much misdirection can make things a bit chaotic and before you know it the plot is lost to say the least. There is also the “it factors” when it comes to the right amount suspense, pacing, trickery and well-drawn out characterization. Most of all, a solid plot to keep the readers interest.

Did this book meet all the requirements? Yes, and more! I came into this series with the ninth book. To be honest, I’m a bit taken back I have not heard of this series before or the author. I made the right decision to choose this book to read and can’t wait to read the others!

Ruff assembles a great cast of characters and the pacing, suspense, the crime, the victims, the neighbors, the neighborhood and the brilliantly written twist and turns had me completely glued to this story until the end. When I thought I knew who had done it, other developments would happen that made the suspense all the more intriguing. There was a detail in the end about one of neighbors and her family that wasn’t fleshed out and I’m hoping it is because it will be included in the next book in the series. I do hope Ruff is continuing the series. I’m hooked!
I like Victoria Heslin no nonsense attitude when finding out Zoey was missing. She could have easily shrugged it off as a couples spat but she had a good head on her shoulders about the situation and reacted the way all law enforcement should. Victoria has good instincts and Ruff does a great job in portraying that attribute. Ruff also does an amazing job at making you really dislike a character(s). There was this one character who thought the worse of everyone and everything it seemed and it was great to see her come to the realization of just how wrong she was and her reaction to it figures with people like that. You’ll just have to read the book to find out more about what I’m talking about. I would also like to add that It was so refreshing to read a story without profanity and explicit scenes.
A great stand alone and an intriguing mystery with all the right elements!

The Bad Neighbor is a terrific mystery with great suspense and characters. The fictional Mountain Meadows community is an intriguing setting and one of my favorites in recent years. I’ve not read the previous eight books in the FBI Special Agent Victoria Heslin series, but as noted by the publisher, each book in the series can also be read as a standalone. Thank you to NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for providing me with an ARC of this novel for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

This is my first Agent Victoria book, and I appreciate that each one in the series can be read as a standalone. This is the ninth installment, and there were clearly a few references to previous books, but they all felt well-explained and contextualized for a new reader.

I liked the fast-pace, short chapters, and felt the multiple POVs did a good job of building out the mystery that was afoot in Mountain Meadow. The cast of primary characters felt distinct, and I was definitely interested to see how the disappearance of the previous homeowner and alleged embezzler tied into Zoe’s eventual disappearance.

I think I would have appreciated more chapters from FBI Agent Victoria’s perspective — I went into this expecting it to be primarily from her perspective, and it ended up feeling like she wasn’t very present until the end of the story.