Thanks to Poisoned Pen Press/Sourcebooks and NetGalley for a copy of Graveyard Bay in exchange for an honest review.
Graveyard Bay by Thomas Kies
Genre: suspense/mystery
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press/Sourcebooks
Publication Date: September 10, 2019
Summary
“Time is running out…
The nude bodies of a corrupt judge and a Jane Doe are found under the icy, black waters at Groward Bay Marina, chained to the prongs of a mammoth fork lift. A videotape points to Merlin Finn, a ruthless gang leader with a proclivity for bondage and S&M who had recently broken out of prison. In the videotape, he’s wearing a black leather bondage mask.
With the newspaper she works for about to be sold and her job in jeopardy, journalist Geneva Chase investigates pill mills, crooked doctors, and a massive money laundering scheme in an attempt to identify the murdered woman and find the killer. Along the way, she finds herself working with a disgraced New York cop and a host of other unlikely characters with ties to the criminal underworld.
Geneva is clearly hot on the killer’s trail, but when she is kidnapped and held at the mercy of the criminals she hoped to stop, it looks like her chance to uncover the darkness that has seeped through her hometown may be lost forever.” (from Goodreads)
My thoughts
This was book three in the Geneva Chase series, but the first one I’ve read. Other than an one or two who-is-THAT? references to characters from previous novels, I wasn’t confused. This works as a standalone.
This is not a book for the faint of heart. While Kies refrains from giving salacious details of the gruesome murders, even the bare-bones version makes me shiver. There’s also a tour (of sorts) in a torture chamber. So if that will be an issue for you, you might want to skip this one. But most people who read current crime thrillers won’t be overly shocked.
The inside scoop into journalism
Kies’ background as a journalist shines. It’s obvious he knows the ins-and-outs of a newsroom, the constant pressure of deadlines, and the often-chaotic world of journalism. In high school, I briefly entertained the notion of becoming a journalist myself, and reading Graveyard Bay was both a trip down memory lane to the newsroom of my hometown’s newspaper and a good reminder of why I didn’t choose that career path.
Geneva’s newspaper has just been bought by Galley Media. All the Sheffield Post employees are tense, wondering if they’re going to lose their job shortly after the Christmas holiday. Kies does a great job creating tension between the old employees and the new owner, who has brought in a new editor. The editor, Lorraine, is thrilled by the developing “Graveyard Bay” murder story. The “nastier the death, the better the ink,” she proclaims to Geneva (chapter 8), as if the torture and murder of two humans is nothing more than a promotional gimmick.
The question of whether Geneva will be able to stand this new, cutthroat editor rumbles in the background throughout the book.
Geneva
She’s a flawed but interesting and sympathetic character.
Her career has almost been derailed by her excessive drinking. (The pressures of work, perhaps?) Others think she’s drunk herself out of other decent jobs. Even her retiring boss, Ben, reminds her that he took a chance on her.
But while her drinking is clearly a problem, it doesn’t dominate her personality. She’s a darned good investigator. She is also worried about being 40; she constantly compares her age to those around her, wondering if everyone in the newsroom is younger than her, and feeling a bit threatened when her ex-boyfriend dates a younger woman. Not that she’ll admit to feeling threatened, of course!
Geneva is a complex character. I really enjoyed reading her “voice” on the page. She’s a hard-nosed cynic with a cheeky side. Her catty thoughts about the new editor, Lorraine, are snarky and funny. But she also cares deeply for her “daughter” Caroline.
In the past, she’s worked with a shadowy organization called Friends of Lydia, which works to free people from trafficking, and two of these “friends” appear in Graveyard Bay. Though she never says it, she maintains her ties to John and Shana partially because she cares about women in trafficking.
The mystery
This is a twist-filled journey that takes Geneva to some strange places. A torture chamber. A dominatrix’s workplace. An isolated house guarded by a man with an AR-15. A pill mill. An alley outside a drug dealer’s house. Like I said, it’s not for the faint of heart.
The S&M references
The one thing that diminished my enjoyment was the S&M references. I understand that Kies (through Geneva) is highlighting the difference between what Shana, a dominatrix, does for a living and what happens in the torture chamber; one is for pleasure between consenting adults, and the other is for one person to inflict main on another. I also understand that the details into Shana’s profession and background are partially to develop her character.
But this part of the storyline seemed distracting, as though it didn’t quite fit into the overall story. Frankly, it didn’t interest me nearly as much as the investigation into the murders and the area’s opium epidemic.
Overall, though, this was a good novel. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Geneva’s opinions and I would read another book in this series.
Thanks again to Poisoned Pen Press/Sourcebooks and NetGalley for a copy of Graveyard Bay in exchange for an honest review.
Talk to me! What do you think?