October Month of Reviews #3 ~ What Lies Behind by J.T. Ellison

For October, I am bound and determined to get caught up on my NetGalley Reviews, something I've been trying to do for a while. I've been turned down for a few books probably because of my ratio, currently sitting at 74%. Here's to getting reviews out for all the books I've read and getting to the other books that I haven't yet read.


Finished ~ What Lies Behind (Samantha Owens 04) by J.T. Ellison
Completed 1/14/15
3.5 of 5 stars
400 page Kindle book


I received this book from NetGalley for my honest review.

While this book COULD be read as a stand alone, if you really want to know the players, it's better to read all the books that came before this one. Better yet to also read the Taylor Jackson series by Ellison, where we first meet Samantha.

Samantha Owens is a Medical Examiner turned teacher and consultant. She's been in DC for a while now and is pretty settled in. In this book, two people were killed on Samantha's street, so while she's not a medical examiner anymore, she finds herself wanting to know about what happened. When her friend Fletch gets the case, Sam is all over it and eventually is called in an official capacity for it. The case itself is very complex. It looks like one thing, but is another. It looks like one person is doing some killing then another. It's very back and forth and weird. The underlying subject of the book is trying to stop a bioterrorism attack.

I really like the characters of the book. Sam is flawed but strong. Xander and Fletch are good character as well. I especially liked a new to the series character ~ Marcus Daniels, and I hope he stays around. That being said, a lot of the book actually bored me. It was pretty slow moving with pockets of action mixed in. They seemed to be going in circles a lot as well. What I really didn't like was the over abundance of coincidences that take place in this book. It HAPPENS to start out on Sam's street when Sam also happens to be being stalked (though she doesn't know it). Xander's storyline also happens to mesh in perfectly with what Sam is doing on many fronts. It's just way too many coincidences, but hey, it's fiction, so I guess that's ok. :/

Overall it was good, not great. I love the characters, I just didn't care for this storyline. The end was great, so I think the next book shows a lot of promise, hopefully it'll be really enjoyable. I do recommend this series, and the one before it featuring homicide detective Taylor Jackson. I definitely do enjoy Ellison as an author and will continue to read her books.


Setting = A
Plot = B
Conflict = B
Characters = A
Theme = B