Illusion of Truth by James L'Etoile Book Review

About the Book:

Sacramento Detective Emily Hunter is exposed to inhumanity on a daily basis―it’s the unfortunate baggage that comes with police work, and she’s mostly learned how to shoulder the load. But it all turns personal when her fellow cop and boyfriend, Brian Conner, is caught in the blast of a targeted church bombing.

Brian is gravely injured, suffering a traumatic brain injury. But the attacks don’t stop there―soon, more officers come under fire, and Emily searches for a connection. She and her partner, Javier Medina, discover that Brian and the other injured officers share a common past―a past that now has them targeted for payback.

Battling with heartbreak, Emily has to identify who’s responsible for the string of attacks and stop them before there are more casualties. Will Brian ever be the same again? Already grappling with her mother’s progressing Alzheimer’s, Emily can’t bear the thought of losing both of the people she loves most.

Though it feels impossible, Emily must stay focused on finding the criminals who uprooted her life―and making sure that justice is served.

My Review:

This is another good police procedure featuring Detective Emily Hunter as a strong female character. This novel has more of the personal events and feelings in her life as her boyfriend, also a detective, is severely injured in a bombing. The mystery revolves around finding out who seems to have a vendetta against a particular group of police officers.

The plot moves well with further attacks. Emily works hard on the case, since her boyfriend was involved. There was a date on some bomb fragments and one thing I do not understand is why that date was not investigated for way too long. A search of news headlines would have turned up the crucial event way earlier than what the investigation found.

The plot gets quite complicated near the end with lots of twists and red herrings. I have liked this series and will be waiting for the next one.

My rating: 4/5 stars.

You can read my reviews of the earlier books in the series: The Face of Greed and River of Lies. 

About the Author:

James L’ Etoile is a former associate warden in a maximum-security prison, hostage negotiator, facility captain, and director of California’ s state parole system, and he uses his twenty-nine years “ behind bars” as an influence in his award-winning novels, short stories, and screenplays. His novels include Dead Drop, Black Label, At What Cost, Bury the Past, and Little River. Illusion of Truth is the third book in his Detective Emily Hunter Mystery Series, following the Lefty Award-nominated Face of Greed and River of Lies. L’ Etoile lives with his wife outside of Sacramento, California. When he’ s not writing, you can find him working with his Corgi therapy dogs.

Oceanview Publishing 366 pages.

I received a complimentary egalley of this book from the publisher. My comments are an independent and honest review.

(My star ratings: 5-I love it, 4-I like it, 3-It's OK, 2-I don't like it, 1-I hate it.)