Steve's Reviews > Turning Secrets

This book is #6 of 7 in the Stonechild and Roleau series. Kala Stonechild is a detective on the Major Crimes team in Kingston, Canada and the central character of the book. All the other characters and their subplots radiate out from her like spokes on a wheel. The book opens with the team being called in when the body of a young mother is found at the base of an apartment building under construction. The first question for the team to answer is whether it was suicide or murder.

Kala’s niece Dawn (whose mother is in prison) lives with her. Dawn’s birth father was just released from prison and he travels to Kingston to try to secretly (without Kala’s knowledge) rebuild his relationship with Dawn. Dawn is friends at school with a group of girls, one of who is taking part in some illegal activities and is trying to involve Dawn. Kala has a romance going with one of her fellow detectives, Gundersund, who says he is getting a divorce, but whose wife, Fiona, has reappeared in his life. Kala’s detective partner, Roleau, is having a romantic relationship with Marci Stokes, a local crime reporter who is being fed inside information about the case by another detective on their team.

I like this series. The books in the series are halfway between detective mysteries and relationship novels. The characters are appealing enough to identify with and flawed enough to be real. The plot is complex enough to be interesting without losing the reader. Four and a half stars out of five.