Deadly Business Book Blog Tour, Review, and #Giveaway #LoneStarLit

Pages: 324 pages

Publication Date: July 4, 2021

Genre: Suspense / Thriller / Crime Thriller

Following a tactical raid at an Oklahoma farm, a phone call sends U.S. Deputy Marshal Piper McKay rushing back to the East Texas cattle ranch where she grew up. Her grandmother, Jennie Layton, is near death from a crushed skull. When local authorities claim the cause of the injury was an accident, Piper isn’t convinced.

Who wants Jennie dead and why? Is the reason connected to a dubious contract Piper finds in Jennie’s desk? Piper realizes her grandmother isn’t the only one in danger when she barely escapes a deadly attack. Thrust into the middle of a high-stakes, high-risk shell game, Piper’s become the target. The case takes a bizarre turn when Piper unknowingly crosses paths with a Special Ranger. If he can’t derail her investigation, it could cost him his life.

With millions of dollars on the line, nothing will stop a ring of cold-blooded killers, including the murders of a U.S. Marshal and a Special Ranger.

I’m always in for reading a Western. But who knew I was missing out on a whole genre with modern day Western in the guise of a crime thriller? Not me, that’s for sure! DEADLY BUSINESS has everything I’m looking for in a novel. In this case, we have a U.S. Marshal, A Special Ranger, cattle rustling, UTV’s instead of horses (but still has some horses!), a former rodeo clown, and a big shoot-out as the icing on the cake.

Here are all the adjectives I can think of to describe the novel without spoiling anything:

Ms. Dickason’s excellent writing had me powering through the chapters, wanting to know what would happen next. The cattle ranching facts fit into the plot right along with the solving the different crimes, included attempted murder.

The characters in this novel are intriguing, well written, and ones who I’d willingly follow into another story. Piper, our heroine and U.S. Marshal, is home in Texas after her grandmother, Jen, has a horse-riding accident. But Piper is skeptical from the beginning and uses her crime-solving skills and marshal resources to find out the truth behind the accident. Piper is a risk-taker, which is an excellent trait in a marshal. These risks make for some magnificent tension in the novel. I also appreciate how Piper keeps herself busy while worrying about Jen. Like Piper, I don’t think I’d be good at sitting at the hospital, worrying, when there is work to be done.

I likewise enjoyed getting to know the other members of Piper’s team, especially Grady, the former rodeo clown who helps run the family ranch. I imagine Grady has some amazing stories from his rodeo days!

Besides our main characters, there is some interesting play with the secondary characters and if they can be trusted. Sure, there are some obvious goon\thug types. But then there are others that I was not sure if I should trust them. Are the nurses and doctors taking care of Piper’s grandmother honorable? Is the local sheriff in cahoots with the bad guys? What about the other people in town? It takes some skilled writing to make me doubt the intentions of every secondary character!

There is some subtle romance in this novel between a few characters. And honestly, I’m glad the romance is down-played by Ms. Dickason. I was more interested in Piper’s solving the case and finding Leopold, the stolen bull, than any romance.

My one tiny point of contention is the random shifts in POV between Piper and Cade. This is a pet peeve of mine. I appreciate having the different points of view, as it helps the reader know what is happening when our main character isn’t present. But there are no notifications to clue me in when we are shifting to a different character. It takes time for me to adjust to to the new POV, which distracts from reading the novel.

A few interesting asides: I learned A LOT about the business of cattle DNA and selling bull semen, which was oddly interesting. There is also a great lesson about backing up your computer data when an office is ransacked and then burned. Always back up the important data!

Overall, DEADLY BUSINESS is a page-turning thriller that I highly recommend. 4 1/2 Stars!

 

Award-winning Author Anita Dickason is a twenty-two veteran of the Dallas Police Department. She served as a patrol officer, undercover narcotics detective, advanced accident investigator, tactical officer, and first female sniper on the Dallas SWAT team.

Anita writes about what she knows, cops and crime. Her police background provides an unending source of inspiration for her plots and characters. Many incidents and characters portrayed in her books are based on personal experience. For her, the characters are the fun part of writing as she never knows where they will take her. There is always something out of the ordinary in her stories.

In Anita’s debut novel, Sentinels of the Night, she created an elite FBI Unit, the Trackers. Since then, she has added three more Tracker crime thrillers, Going Gone!, A u 7 9, and Operation Navajo. The novels are not a series and can be read in any order.

As a Texas author, many of Anita’s books are based in Texas, or there is a link to Texas. When she stepped outside of the Tracker novels and wrote, Not Dead, she selected Meridian, a small community in central Texas for the location.

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