Right Behind Her by Melinda Leigh

Narrated by Christina Traister

Right Behind Her is the fourth book in Melinda Leigh’s series of romantic suspense novels featuring Bree Taggert, a former homicide detective who is now sheriff of Grey’s Hollow in upstate New York. While each one comprises a self-contained mystery plot, these books really do need to be read in order, so as to be able to follow and understand Bree’s journey from hard-nosed cop who never wanted to see her home town again to a woman making a life and a family there. In the first book, Cross Her Heart, Bree returned to Grey’s Hollow after the murder of her younger sister and realised she needed to stay in order to look after her niece Kayla (eight) and nephew Luke (sixteen) – even though she didn’t have the faintest idea about raising kids. As the series has progressed, we’ve seen her slowly settling into her new roles – professional and personal – although her path has been strewn with realistic obstacles, both internal and external, from dealing with the aftermath of the corruption she uncovered in the sheriff’s department to the continuing fall-out of her own personal trauma – her father was a violent man who killed her mother and then himself when Bree was just eight years old, and it’s clear that she has never really processed or dealt with it. It’s also left her very cautious about forming relationships – which means she’s spent the last couple of books keeping her love interest – investigator and K9 handler Matt Flynn – at a distance, while he begins to worry that she may never be ready or able to commit to him emotionally.

When Right Behind Her opens, Bree and her younger brother Adam – who was just a baby when their parents died – are paying a visit to their former family home, which Adam (now a very successful artist) has recently purchased. It’s hard for Bree, but she wants to be there for her brother, who is clearly looking for some sort of connection to a past he has no memory of. Privately, Bree thinks it’s better that way. As they’re leaving, Bree hears sounds coming from the nearby barn; she identifies herself and enters cautiously, only to be attacked by whoever is inside. The man runs, but Bree manages to subdue him, and once backup arrives and she hands him off, she realises the backpack he was carrying is missing. She, her deputies and Adam start looking for it, but find more than they bargained for when Bree finds the backpack – and Adam finds some old bones. Human remains that are later shown to be those of a man and a woman who were murdered around thirty years before. And the man had clearly been tortured.

Given the timeline and the placement of the remains, there’s no way Bree can ignore the likelihood that her father may have been responsible for the murders. But as she and Matt start digging deeper and their investigation opens out, it seems Jake Taggert isn’t the only suspect – and that there is someone else, someone very much alive in the present, who is determined to prevent Bree from discovering the truth, and who will go to any lengths, even threatening her family, in order to do so.

Right Behind Her is an intense, intricately-plotted and suspenseful story that brings Bree full-circle and forces her to confront the violent tragedy of her past in a way she has refused to do so far. She’s so good at compartmentalising her life that she’s locked it all away in her mind, but this case makes her realise that, if she’s going to do her job properly – and if she wants to build something real with Matt – she has to face those memories she’s tried so hard to forget.

Bree has come a long way since we first met her, and she’s finally starting to achieve some balance in her life. Luke and Kayla are emerging from their grief and starting to return to leading normal lives for kids their age, she’s fallen hard for Matt, and things at work are changing very much for the better. The author does a good job of creating the slightly claustrophobic atmosphere of a small town; the procedural aspects are well done, and the mystery is clever with plenty of twists.

The romance in this series is very low key, and sometimes, Matt seems almost like another secondary character. He’s a great guy – supportive, good at his job, good with the kids – but his relationship with Bree has been pretty one sided, and I couldn’t help thinking he deserved someone who would put him first once in a while.

I’ve listened to Christina Traister a couple of times before, and enjoyed her work, but I have mixed feeling about her narration here. Her pacing is fine, if a little on the slow side, and her voice is easy to listen to; it sits in the mid-range, so she can drop the pitch without it sounding strained to portray male characters – but the way she’s chosen to voice Matt is just awful. He speaks with an Eeyore-ish monotone most of the time and sounds like an expressionless lump; in fact, Bree’s deputy, Todd, sounds much more like a leading man than Matt does. I was also surprised at the choice to perform Luke’s dialogue in a similar register; he’s a young man of sixteen, and could easily have spoken at a slightly higher pitch to differentiate him from the other male characters. Ms. Traister’s portrayal of Bree is good, though, it’s expressive and suitably emotional, and I liked her acting choices, how she’d put a laugh or sob into her voice at the appropriate moments. Taken as a whole, it’s not a bad performance in most respects, but her interpretation of Matt bothered me quite a bit, and has caused me to drop my narration grade a bit.

I’ve been following this series in print, but decided to give audio a try for this instalment, with mixed results. I liked the plot and seeing Bree finally coming to terms with her past, but the narration left something to be desired. I believe there are to be two more outings for Bree Taggert, but I think I’ll stick to reading them with my eyes rather than my ears.

Caz

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