Dead Calm

by Annelise Ryan

Dead Calm centers around Mattie Winston, a medicolegal death investigator who works in Sorenson, Wisconsin’s medical examiner’s office. She is newly married to Steve Hurley, a local homicide detective. Receiving twin middle of the night phone calls from their bosses, they are summoned to the scene of an apparent murder-suicide at a motel on the outskirts of town where rooms can be rented by the hour for liaisons.

Annelise Ryan has written a mystery that moves quickly from one situation to another with lots of threads and clues along the way. How could a pharmaceutical coverup tie in? Are the victims’ spouses culpable? Has a construction crew uncovered the skeleton of an alien on Mattie and Hurley’s proposed home site? Ryan keeps the reader guessing all the way to a surprise resolution.

I would like to extend my thanks to netgalley.com and to Kensington Books for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 5/5

Category: Mystery

Notes: #9 in the Mattie Winston Mystery Series, but it reads well as a standalone. There is a lot of backstory, but the author does a good job of relating it quickly.

Publication:  February 27, 2018—Kensington Books

Memorable Lines:

The land is out in the country; the mosquitos were apparently having some sort of convention out there all weekend, and I was on the menu for every meal.

For starters, my relationship with Emily was iffy at the time, iffy being a euphemism for a barrel of TNT connected to a short, lit fuse.

So far, our road to marital bliss has been as smooth and painless as petting a porcupine.