Review: Shadow of Suspicion by Christy Barritt

A computer expert, Lacey Ryan, is accused of child kidnapping and faces numerous attempts on her life.  Mark James,the detective investigating Lacey, moves from suspicion to a desire to prove her innocence. The novel covers the following:  deception on many levels, computer hacking, cyber-terrorism, and a complicated plan to entrap the female protagonist.  There is a bit of an Alias/Sydney Bristow/CIA/SD-6 situation going on in this story, but on a smaller scale. 

The novel takes place in the same universe as Mountain Hideaway (Trent McCabe’s and Tessa Jones’s story), and Dark Harbor (Zach Davis’ and Madelyn Sawyer’s story), which were both also written by Christy Barritt.  In fact, readers are given a look into the post-nuptial life of Trent and Tessa, however, Zach is given just a passing mention.

There was enough mystery and suspense for me to wonder about what was going on.  I had a bit of a Scooby Doo experience:  I wasn’t able to guess who all the culprits were before the end, and needed the debriefing to discover how deep the conspiracy against Lacey was.  

It’s also a quick read; I was able to finish the book in less than two hours in one sitting.  If you are looking for a quick mystery to occupy yourself for an afternoon, and you enjoy a touch of romance, Shadow of Suspicion might be the book for you.

Review: Hidden Agenda by Christy Barritt

Hidden Agenda, by Christy Barritt, was released under Harlequin's Love Inspired Suspense line in March 2015.  I picked up this title because I liked Ms. Barritt's novel, Dubiosity, which I reviewed earlier in January of this year. 

The protagonists in Hidden Agenda are Bailey Williams, a home care nurse, and Ed Carter, a CIA agent. They are brought together by the death of Ed's father, when Ed returns to Smuggler's Cove, the island which his father retired to after a lifelong career with the State Department.  Bailey is less than impressed with the son who did not make it home in time for his own father's funeral.  She isn't even certain of Ed's identity, because Mr. Carter, Ed's father, did not keep any photos of Ed in his home.  She had been told that Ed is a lawyer, but he doesn't seem to behave or act like one.  Ed, who is convinced that his father's death was actually a murder, is suspicious of Bailey, wondering if she played any part in Mr. Carter's death.  One of Mr. Carter's friends had left Ed a cryptic message, but had died under mysterious circumstances, just as his father had. 

As the novel progresses, the attraction between Bailey and Ed grows, but several factors prevent them from trusting each other.  Ed needs to search through his father's belongings to find out if his dad was hiding classified information on his estate, and wonders why Bailey is remaining at Smuggler's Cove even though her duties towards his family are finished.   Bailey has been threatened several times by an unknown assailant who also promises to hurt and kill her relatives if she does not help him to recover secret information that Mr. Carter has hidden away on his estate.  She is also warned not to tell Ed about the threats, otherwise her family will be harmed.  Ed, who has been burned before by an ex-girlfriend who turned out to be a spy, senses that Bailey is holding back information from him and continues to wonder if she is working for the people that were responsible for getting his father killed, even though he gets to know her character better.  His mistrust doesn't encourage Bailey to ask him for help against the threats that she is facing in spite of her developing feelings for him.  Will Ed and Bailey be able to trust and help each other?  Will they find out who killed Mr. Carter, and will they find what he hid on his property?

I found this novel to be fairly suspenseful and fast paced.  There are secrets, danger, intrigue, espionage, death threats, and attempts against people's lives, unsuccessful, and successful.  I would also say that there seems to be no character that is wasted; each seems to play a fairly significant role in the plot, however minor it may be.  I thought that this made the novel tightly written and I appreciated the development of the plot and the economic use of the characters that were introduced in the story.  I did not guess the identities of the antagonists; I don't know if this was just laziness or fuzziness in my thinking, but when they were revealed, I had a moment of, "Yeah,...of course...that makes sense...," for one of them, and for the other, I appreciated the author's use of another character that had been fleetingly introduced earlier in the story and of whom I had not expected to hear about again. 

I enjoyed reading Hidden Agenda, and will probably read more of Ms. Barritt's work in the future.

Review: Dubiosity by Christy Barritt

Dubiosity.  Definition:  doubt, uncertainty. 

It is also the name of Christy Barritt's novel which is published by Waterfall Press.

Savannah Harris is an ex-investigative journalist and ex-pastor's wife who is presently working as a textbook editor.  She is filled with doubt in many areas of her life because of the tragedy that resulted from digging too deeply into secrets that certain people wanted to keep hidden.   As a result, she lost her baby daughter, her husband, her journalistic fervor, and her faith.  Now a childless widow, her investigative abilities are called upon again when a dying migrant farm worker requests her presence at his deathbed and tells her that her that he was murdered.   He utters the name of a prominent business man, the owner of a local farm, but without any explanation before he passes on.  Savannah cannot believe her ears and is reluctant to look into the matter.  However, with the disappearance of three more migrant workers and the mysterious attack upon the migrant workers' advocate, Marti, who happens to be Savannah's best friend, Savannah can no longer ignore that something illegal and dangerous is happening to the migrant workers at the farm where they work.  It becomes more apparent that the threat is real when Savannah discovers flattened pennies in locations connected to the migrant workers who have died or disappeared, and then in the presence of her own home.

Clive Miller is doing a little bit of investigating of his own at the farm.  He is Savannah's new boarder, staying at the carriage house on her property while he tries to discover who murdered his wife six years before in the Cape Thomas area.  He has a tight timeline; he has other obligations that require him to be elsewhere in a short while, and there is also the danger that people will find out who he really is before he gets the information that he wants.  When Savannah is threatened in her home, Clive offers his help.  Their attraction to each other grows as they spend time with each other, both helping each other in investigating the happenings at the farm.  However, Clive is a believer and Savannah is filled with doubt about the existence of God since He allowed such horrible tragedy into her life.  She still feels guilty about her past actions which led to the deaths of her husband and child.   Clive, on the other hand, must keep his motives for finding out who murdered his wife as a means of redemption, rather than for revenge and retribution.

The stakes are raised when their adversary explodes Savannah's car, in an effort to deter her from continuing on with her investigations.  The murderer of Clive's wife leaves behind a necklace to convey the message that someone knows who Clive really is, and also to gloat about her murder.  Savannah finds out Clive's true identity.  Will she be able to figure out who is responsible for the deaths, kidnappings, and attacks in the Cape Thomas area?  Is it Clive?  Is it the farm owner?  Is it one of the migrant workers?  Or is it someone else entirely?

"Dubiosity," is an apt title for this book.  Savannah is filled with doubt about the existence and goodness of God.  She is doubtful about whether she can use her journalistic gifts for good since it had resulted in so much pain and death for her personally.  She is doubtful about whether or not the migrant worker's death was murder.  She is doubtful about whether the farm owner could be guilty because she perceives him to be a good man.  She is doubtful about Clive once she finds out who he really is, even though she has been able to get a good gauge of his character after spending time with him. 

However, Savannah does come to a place of restored faith in God, when she finds that she can rely only on Him to get her out of the danger that she is in.  She confesses that though she had believed in His existence before, she did not have a relationship with Him and that she finally wanted to be His disciple, using her gifts for God instead of using them for other reasons, purposes, or idols.  In this spirit, I found that the Scripture that is inscribed at the start of the book to be totally appropriate.  It reads:  Stop doubting and believe. - John 20:27.  This is necessary for Savannah to break through in her struggle with the Lord, and also in how she sees herself, her talents, and her future.  She needs to believe in the existence and goodness of God.  She also needs to see that without God, she can do nothing (see John 15:5).  For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10).

Dubiosity captured my attention from beginning to end.  As the novel unfolded, I was able to cross a few candidates off from the "Guilty" list, but I still went back and forth for a while.  There is a number of characters that I have not mentioned in this review who were possibilities as the mastermind behind the dark activities in Cape Thomas.  I was pretty much kept in the dark until the end, and even then, because of what happened, I was unsure until the heroine was able to wrangle the confession out of the guilty party.  This was a great romantic suspense story that I feel honoured to have had the opportunity to read.

Disclaimer:  I received an e-copy of "Dubiosity" from NetGalley in exchange for a review.  All opinions stated in this review are mine.